For The Day Of The Lord Is Near... (Rapture, Five.)

No Western nation is as religion-soaked as ours, where nine out of ten of us love God and are loved by Him in return. That mutual passion centers our society and demands some understanding, if our doom-eager society is to be understood at all. ~Harold Bloom, The American Religion. (Quoted from Under The Banner Of Heaven by Jon Krakauer.)

...

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

...

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up. ~Hosea 8:7

So there was a mass shooting at a Mormon church in Grand Blanc, Michigan, yesterday.

I've been to Grand Blanc, one of my cousins got married in the Catholic church in that town because it's where her husband is from and where his family went to church. Back then the place didn't strike me as especially Republican let alone what became MAGA, but then I found out the shooter was from Burton, and I was like...Oh. I've known people from there, too.

And that tracks.

The shooter was a Trump Supporter and the very first thing I saw when I logged into social media after I got up last night was the above picture.

The shooter was a conservative Evangelical Christian Creationist Trump Supporter with the sort of damed near full-face bullshit neck-beard that a dude who'll walk up and tell you that they stopped eating Pork or Shellfish because "That's what the Lord's Word says" might have.

I've not been to the Ark Encounter or the Creation Museum because by the time those things existed I was either on my way out or already out of conservative Christianity. Not that I'd have gone for any reason other than somebody dragging me there and paying my way when I was in it. I've never been a fucking Creationist. The entire idea of Young Earth Creationism strikes me as nothing more than pure Bovine Exhaust and the people who preach that shit don't lend any credence to themselves by their actions or appearances, usually.

But I know plenty of people who've been to one place or the other, either in full seriousness or in some ironic fashion. An Evangelical ex-girlfriend who now lives in Indiana has been twice, my Pentecostal ex-wife went there and sent me pictures and a couple of videos. Several work friends from the casino have been to those places, a couple of them multiple times. If somebody goes to a place like that and actually enjoys it and takes it seriously it's not the least bit of a stretch for me to say I know exactly what kind of other stuff they might believe.

But, like I said, I've never been one of those people myself.

Why?? Among other things I grew up with people who were Dinosaur stans, the Christian schools I went to had science books like any other school (if somewhat hilariously dated ones, now that I think about it) and the Creation of the World simply wasn't and still isn't an article of faith to me.

We're here, what are we going to do about it??

But the answer some people, including a lot of "Conservatives," MAGA's, Republicans and various Fundamentalist type Christians come up with it "They want to fight about it."

Republicans think they want a Civil War to cover up their Manifold Transgressions and their Mighty Sins...and they fail to realize that both their narrative and whatever control they think they have over the masses won't survive more than the first couple of weeks. A lot of people will get a massive detox off of Fox News or right-wing internet horseshit simply from the internet being irregular, the power being out much of the time, and perhaps most importantly the things they will see with their own eyes and who will be doing that shit.

Of course, I realize they don't care about most of the country (including a hell of a lot of Red States) because what they're after is TOTAL control of a few banana republics and small fiefdoms. 

Trust me, you don't want to live in any of those kind of places.

And I'm here to tell you what they will do is try to enforce shit like Evangelical or Pentecostal church purity culture as the cultures of those areas...yes, MAGA itself not to mention Trump will fall by the wayside as soon as they aren't needed any longer.

I'm also here to tell you that, as somebody who experienced a lot of that shit as an outsider because I wasn't that kind of Christian or conservative but got involved with people who were...there is a lot of squicky weird shit involved that'll make a lot of normal people run for the hills faster than the Roadrunner getting away from Wile E. Coyote.

But...

There's a hell of a lot of other motherfuckers out there for whom a lot of that kind of shit, dry-humping, purity rings, Speaking in Tongues, thanking Jesus for your parking space and the weird acting-out that goes with believing a bunch of Fundamentalist or Pentecostal hooey in a world that most of it doesn't even know that shit exists...and These Fucking People somehow think they're in charge...is just normal.

And these ass-clowns either think other people want that or intend to force it on the rest of us.

Republicans, as I said, think they want a Civil War for various reasons. "As a shortcut to avoid having to persuade people" is a big one...

These Fucking People?

A hell of a lot of them want that shit too...but they want it to be a War Of Religion with all the depravity and inhumanity that tends to go with such things.

I'm here to tell you, it's starting. Republicans going after Republicans (and yes, Mormons are mostly Republican) has always been my tell that we were near the point of a Civil War starting. I used to be a Republican, listen when I talk.

A lot of these damn Republicans are so hard-up for some kind of fight with the "Left" that they don't see they have a lot more actual enemies to their Right.

And it's mostly people who think they don't go far enough...even though they probably can't under our existing system, which despite catering to various flavors of this bullshit for a couple hundred years has never done so enough for the assholes to actually be happy with whatever they got.

Let me put it another way, Fanatics gonna Fanatic.

I saw a bunch of stuff online about Mormon theology last night, and to be honest a lot of it just sounds like using different words to describe the same stuff that I learned in Christian schools, "Godhead" rather than "Trinity" and so on.

But there's people who'll kill people over such interpretations.

There's people who'll kill somebody for not being a Young Earth Creationist, apparently.

And there's a lot more people who'll use such beliefs, or claims of them...as an excuse to kill and steal.

And the whole point of America...the whole point of things like the First Amendment and the separation of Church and State...was to prevent that shit!

You were warned, America. I've spent most of my life in Northern Michigan. This used to be Militia country. I've been aware of a lot of the weird shit longer than most people have.

I've been banging away on this topic on one level or another for about 30 years now, and I'm here to tell you back when I was a hard-core 1990's conservative Baptist Republican with more guns and way more copies of the Bible than I have now, those far-right militia motherfuckers wanted to kill me, too.

They made no secret of that fact, and I made no secret of the fact that force would be met with force and I had better training than they did...which is probably why they never came at me.

And now...at least since 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic and the whole Trump thing...the weirdo Evangelical shit and the Meal Team Six Militia bullshit and all these conspiracy theories and other goofy shit are just fusing into one big lump of stupid.

It's going to come down to a fight.

And plenty of cops and soldiers and Republican politicians and average people who thought they were gonna get to be in on all this garbage and profit by it will get gunned down by the real bad actors...the people only now emerging stage right from the shadows...the same as the rest of us.

And now, more than ever, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

And you're either willing to fight for it or you're not.

For the Day Of The Lord draws near in the Valley of Decision, and there ain't no Rapture gonna let your ass escape without paying the cost.

We're all going to have to go through this together.

Does that bullshit point you think you were trying to make by letting all this happen seem so important, in the face of that??

Слава Україна!

Yuri Orlov: [At Andrei's presidential compound showing the Liberian president a silver revolver pistol] The Glock is interesting. It is made of a polymer composite. Many of my clients feel that they can go through airport security without seeing a lot of bells and whistles. Personally, I do not recommend that. [Andrei chuckles glancing over at a guard flirting with a female staffer] On the other hand, if you are looking for traditional wheel gun, there is no substitute for six inches of muzzle energy of 357 mag I mean, of course, it will never jam. [Andrei shoots the guard flirting with the female staffer] WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!

Andrei Baptiste Sr.: [Aims gun at Yuri] WHAT DID YOU SAY?!

Yuri Orlov: Now, you gonna have to buy it! IT IS A USED GUN! How can I sell a used gun? [Takes pistol from Andrei with his son and bodyguards all aiming rifles at an entirely still business-focused Yuri]

Andrei Baptiste Sr.: A "used gun"? A "used gun"?! [Chuckles] That's a good one. You know? There is no discipline with the youth today. I tried to set an example, but it is difficult huh? Personally, I blame MTV. [Smiles and Yuri nods in acknowledgment] A "used gun"? [Chuckles heartily, gets up and extends hand for handshake] I think you and I, we can do business. ~From the film Lord Of War.

Four

Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. ~Joel 3:9-14

Reaping The Whirlwind (Rapture, Four.)

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up. ~Hosea 8:7

...

Sure, we were unprepared, our tools, our training, everything I just talked about, all one class-A, gold-standard clusterfuck, but the weapon that really failed wasn’t something that rolled off an assembly line. It’s as old as…I don’t know, I guess as old as war. It’s fear, dude, just fear and you don’t have to be Sun freaking Tzu to know that real fighting isn’t about killing or even hurting the other guy, it’s about scaring him enough to call it a day... “Shock and Awe”? Perfect name, “Shock and Awe”! But what if the enemy can’t be shocked and awed? Not just won’t, but biologically can’t! That’s what happened that day outside New York City, that’s the failure that almost lost us the whole damn war. The fact that we couldn’t shock and awe Zack boomeranged right back in our faces and actually allowed Zack to shock and awe us! They’re not afraid! No matter what we do, no matter how many we kill, they will never, ever be afraid! ~Todd Waino, World War Z (Novel by Max Brooks)

...

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

Again, I keep trying to warn people.

Lots of these fucking right-wing morons are so desperate for either a Cold War-like showdown with the "Left" or some kind of cosplay Christian "Holy War" that they don't see the threats within their own house. Yes, there's people who think all this crazy shit doesn't go near to far enough, there's people who just want to cause chaos and death and don't want to be bothered with all the "Christian" hokum, among other things. Pretty much the only value all of these groups have in common that I've observed is a ravening hatred of women that makes basic Republican misogyny look like Second Wave Feminism.

And when the shit hits the fan...an event I see as not only likely but soon...these fucking people are going to be wearing their bomber-jackets like Mike Pence at the Korean DMZ, glaring bumboclaatically with rifles in hand at some supposed "Leftist" (who may well just be a conservative Democrat or moderate Republican) or a few mid-lib protesters across a No Man's Land of barbed wire and shit...and they're gonna get shot in the back by some fat bearded internet moron who'll then live-stream the event to the tune of "Big Time" by Peter Gabriel and post that shit all over YouTube, blatantly obvious far-right commentary, declarations of racial holy war and all.

And the Republican response will be to try to haul Peter Gabriel and record label execs in for some bullshit congressional hearings or something.

I get the worldview, OK?? But it's not 1985 anymore.

(And while I'm at it, now Republicans are gleefully in bed with the very remnants of the same Soviet Union they once fanatically opposed. Yes, I'm a little tired of this bullshit.)

More to the point, it's specifically conservatism, corporations like META and Republicans that created this fucking mess...and then refused to adapt. In fact, the corps keep doubling down on stupid shit. META wants to make pretty much another Instagram clone just for AI slop bullshit, just for example.

It's Idicocracy, only somehow a lot more stupid.

Like, some idiot Congressional Republicans want to mint a Charlie Kirk coin that's actual goddamn money.

Somehow on the coin they manage to make Charlie Kirk look like what they think some goddamned Roman Emperor's male concubine might look like.

Republicans are basically Nero, at this point, playing some fucking musical instrument or other while Rome burns...because they live in and are acting (in the real world) in accordance with a bunch of crazy shit that only exists in their own pointed heads. I mean, Good Lord, come on!

Trust me, I get it. Ideology can be a hell of a damned drug.

But if you're not gonna put the pipe down at some point it pretty quickly becomes indistinguishable from garden-variety Mental Illness.

Or just plain stupidity, if you wanna get really technical about it.

And not just a lot of These Fucking People...but a lot of people in general...have had it too good for too long and their survival skills (or willingness to survive without FOX News or Hulu or their daily dose of whatever if not all of the above) have atrophied. 

If they had any in the first place, that is.

When the shit hits the fan a hell of a lot of people aren't going to be able to handle it, and even a lot of those with enough survival skills that they can adjust are going to struggle just with the changes in their worldview that are going to be required by acknowledging (functionally) far-rightists shooting at "Conservatives" and honestly that whole movement is going to fall apart as soon as their information infrastructure and worldview bubble do.

Except of course on the far edges where people are so goddamned brain-fried it won't matter, but then those will be the people shooting at the rest of us.

The continuing Controlled Flight Into Terrain by the Trump administration in terms of running both America and their own popularity into the ground will not help...and like any fucking narcissistic abusers given power for awhile, then let back in after a breakup, these fucking people have functionally made it very difficult for this country to continue in anything like its current form without them.

I've been through this in terms of relationships, rebuilding is hard, and there will be people who just don't want to do it.

More to the point (and that's the problem) there's also those for whom chaos itself is addictive and fun and they think it's hilarious, etc.

And that, right there, is the people we're going to have to worry about.

America is going to reap the whirlwind of a lot of the bullshit from the last 25 years because there's at least one generation that thinks the Yahoo News comments section circa 2008 either is real life, or what real life should have been.

You might as well get used to the fact that there's no Rapture, no easy out, no escapist fantasy coming to save you...and prepare for this particular fight.

'Cause I guarantee you the bad guys are preparing, perhaps badly, but they are preparing.

And worse, Republicans will pick the wrong fight, do it in a self-aggrandizing fashion, and wonder why they're getting shot at, same as the rest of us are.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

And you're either willing to fight for it or you're not.

The time to decide is now.

Слава Україна!

The Holy Quran says it, "Pilgrimage to the House [of God built by the prophet Abraham] is a duty men owe to God; those who are able, make the journey." (3:97) Allah said: "And proclaim the pilgrimage among men; they will come to you on foot and upon each lean camel, they will come from every deep ravine" (22:27).Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun intermittently calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other. . . .That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. ~Malcolm X.

Three

Yuri Orlov: [At Andrei's presidential compound showing the Liberian president a silver revolver pistol] The Glock is interesting. It is made of a polymer composite. Many of my clients feel that they can go through airport security without seeing a lot of bells and whistles. Personally, I do not recommend that. [Andrei chuckles glancing over at a guard flirting with a female staffer] On the other hand, if you are looking for traditional wheel gun, there is no substitute for six inches of muzzle energy of 357 mag I mean, of course, it will never jam. [Andrei shoots the guard flirting with the female staffer] WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!

Andrei Baptiste Sr.: [Aims gun at Yuri] WHAT DID YOU SAY?!

Yuri Orlov: Now, you gonna have to buy it! IT IS A USED GUN! How can I sell a used gun? [Takes pistol from Andrei with his son and bodyguards all aiming rifles at an entirely still business-focused Yuri]

Andrei Baptiste Sr.: A "used gun"? A "used gun"?! [Chuckles] That's a good one. You know? There is no discipline with the youth today. I tried to set an example, but it is difficult huh? Personally, I blame MTV. [Smiles and Yuri nods in acknowledgment] A "used gun"? [Chuckles heartily, gets up and extends hand for handshake] I think you and I, we can do business. ~From the film Lord Of War.

Sowing The Wind (Rapture, Three.)

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up. ~Hosea 8:7

...

We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us; they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them. ~Hunter S. Thompson

...

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. ~John 8:44

I keep trying to warn people.

We are Sowing the Wind.

And in the case of American Christianity and Republican politics in particular we are jerking off when we should be working and wallowing in narcissism and self-referential shit and thinking we're better than other people to the point where it has become self-destructive and will only get more so.

We are destroying ourselves and we are doin so when we should be...or should have been...at our absolute strongest.

By the time this is over, no one will care about America. 

People will ask, like the one Chud character in that Civil War movie "What kind of American?" you are and if you answer wrong you get shot.

By either side.

And for the record no one will care about American style Evangelical Christianity or Donald Trump either and in fact both will be blamed for this whole mess.

That will be in no small part to people like Mark Driscoll having ruined American Evangelical Protestant Christianity's witness.

And no one will care.

Especially when it comes out that they all thought they would get away with it because Jesus would take them away in the Rapture and they'd never have to answer for their own False Prophecies. I've seen this kind of lying and escapism myself, yo.

In point of fact a hell of a lot of them seem to think the Lord is in on it, or could be manipulated or would cut them some BS deal.

Or maybe it was just never about the Lord?

Indeed there's a non-zero chance like I've said that These Fucking People will worship the Devil in dark and dangerous places, and think they come out ahead by doing so.

Honestly, I'm not even sure a lot of American-style "Christians" know the difference between Christ and Mammon in the fucking least anyway.

And American government policy not only sure as fuck doesn't, it often claims the former while actually letting the latter have free reign.

That legit doesn't help.

Too many people think there won't be consequences for that, even though you can literally see it from here that we have sown the wind and we're about to reap the whirlwind.

That said, when this country flies apart because of all this bullshit, being an American reunificationist will be the most unpopular political position imaginable, because far too many of us simply do not want to live together anymore.

So, most likely, in the places they end up controlling these monstrous fools will be left to do as they like...especially because who the fuck else is gonna want somewhere like Oklahoma??

At least until somebody has to invade and destroy them because of all the human rights violations and shit.

And yes, that will happen.

Because yes, these morons will fuck it up even if they aren't actively trying to be destructive or kill their own people...and they will do plenty of both if left to their own devices.

Yeah, somebody could end up fighting a war over Ohio, and as a Michigan resident I think that's about the most ridiculous thing imaginable.

But we already have Republicans going after Republicans.

That's one of my major tells for "We're about to have a Civil War."

And the whole thing here is...These fucking people will fight Jihads against each other over not being Republican enough, or racist enough, or shitty enough, and the list goes on ad infinitum.

Because fanatics are gonna fanatic and These Fucking People simply have to have an enemy or they can't even goddamned function or get out of bed in the morning without somebody to at least imagine themselves fighting against.

I mean, if you think about it we're already there and the Republican Party keeps trying to blame nonexistent "Leftist Terrorists" when it's most often Republican-inflected or -originated Internet Nihilists that are actually the ones shooting people.

And again, I keep trying to warn people they will deliberately start going after Republicans next and be blatantly obvious about why-and who's doing it-soon enough. It ain't the Left, bros, it's a subsect of your own who think you're not going far enough...or perhaps it's more accurately said that under our existing culture and system they know you can't go as far as they want to. So, they want to burn it all down.

They're gonna start with you, though.

And when this blows all the way up and the people actually doing this shit are bowing down to Golden Idols of Dis Pater and Mammon and worse (Do not ask how much worse it can get, a My Little Pony in a jar full of nastiness sitting on an altar could in fact be these fucking people's deity) please don't have the nerve to be surprised.

In fact, if you think Christian Nationalist ammo-sexual white dudes whose primary (actual) values are macho bullshit, patriarchal abuse of women and the worship of hierarchy and Power are gonna fight all that hard against that kind of disgusting shit...especially if the disgusting-shit people are the ones doing atrocities and war crimes the hardest...or in fact do anything other than look at the Demon-worshipers and go full Twink bottom while screaming "Abuse me, daddy!" You have another thing coming.

Because at this point it really is Anything but America, Anything but "Love Thy Neighbor" etc.

You were warned, for years.

It's going to come down to a fight.

And too many fucking people have willfully committed themselves to misunderstanding what that fight is or who it will be against because they only see good or evil through a lens of what they want to believe...if not straight up only through the eyes of their own bullshit-ass deranged narcissism.

And people who fail to wake the fuck up are going to find themselves enslaved to people far more unworthy and worse than even anything we have now and dying for far more stupid preventable reasons than most people currently do.

Yes, that really is the world a lot of these freaks want to live in because all of them think they'll be the lord in his castle and not the serf in the field, or the warlord and not the catamite tied to the tailgate of his Toyota Hilux next to the .50 Caliber ammunition.

You either believe in Freedom or you don't.

And more to the point, "Freedom to do what?" is a question we better start asking ourselves.

Слава Україна!

Osman Ali Atto: I see not catching Aidid is becoming routine.

General William Garrison: We're not leaving Somalia until we find him. And we will find him.

Atto: (scoffing) You've been here, what, six weeks? Six weeks, you tried to catch the General. You put up reward posters. $25,000. What's this, gunfight at K.O. Corral?

Garrison: It's O.K. Corral.

Atto: Don't make the mistake of thinking because I grew up without running water I am simple, General. I do know something about history. See all this? It's simply shaping tomorrow. A tomorrow without a lot of Arkansas white-boys' ideas in it.

Garrison: Well, I wouldn't know about that. I'm from Texas.

Atto: Mr. Garrison, I think you should not have come here. This is civil war. This is our war, not yours.

Garrison: Three hundred thousand dead and counting. That's not a war, Mr. Atto. That's genocide. ~From The Film Black Hawk Down.

Two

Eli Sunday: Daniel, I'm asking if you'd like to have business with the Church of the Third Revelation in developing this lease on young Bandy's thousand acre tract. I'm offering you to drill on one of the great undeveloped fields of Little Boston!  

Daniel Plainview: I'd be happy to work with you.

Eli Sunday: You would? Yes, yes, of course. That’s wonderful.

Daniel Plainview: But there is one condition for this work.

Eli Sunday: All right.

Daniel Plainview: I'd like you to tell me that you are a false prophet. I'd like you to tell me that you are, and have been, a false prophet, and that God is a superstition.

~From the film There Will Be Blood.

Empire Of Lies (Rapture, Two.)

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. ~John 8:44

...

Eli Sunday: Daniel, I'm asking if you'd like to have business with the Church of the Third Revelation in developing this lease on young Bandy's thousand acre tract. I'm offering you to drill on one of the great undeveloped fields of Little Boston!  

Daniel Plainview: I'd be happy to work with you.

Eli Sunday: You would? Yes, yes, of course. That’s wonderful.

Daniel Plainview: But there is one condition for this work.

Eli Sunday: All right.

Daniel Plainview: I'd like you to tell me that you are a false prophet. I'd like you to tell me that you are, and have been, a false prophet, and that God is a superstition.

~From the film There Will Be Blood.

...

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

I've often said in the last few years that all of this MAGA, Trump, and far-right bullshit will end up with these so-called "Conservative Christians" worshiping the Devil in abandoned sewers and dark remote forests and places like that.

Why do I say that??

All of my life, I've heard the Devil referred to as the "Father Of Lies."

I think it needs to be asked, though, how does that work when it's most often the "Christians" who prefer to be lied to??

I mean, as in literally they simply do not want to hear the Truth.

I personally know people, Christians, who've never heard of or met an obvious False Prophet that they did not like...so long as that False Prophet tickled their ears with whatever kind of bullshit they thought they wanted to hear in any given moment.

They do not want a religion where "Love thy neighbor" and "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy soul and all thy mind" are even values at all, much less the primary values.

And the reason for this, straight up, is that Love Of Self is what they're all about.

Worse, they don't even care what the consequences are.

Or what their own interpretation of Christianity preached about this kind of stuff even five years ago.

And these same fucking people want conflicts and wars based on their lies, and they think they'll win on the strength of a lie that they've basically convinced only themselves of, or perhaps I should say they've managed to cause a lot of people who used to believe in this shit to become unconvinced of it, and that's mostly because of their own behavior and the people they themselves choose to associate with.

In fact, they'd rather lose and/or destroy themselves than admit any (let alone all) of this crap is a lie.

I can remember being taught that Believers had a duty to ascertain what the Truth was in any given situation, especially religiously or theologically...lest they lead themselves or others astray.

Or maybe there was in fact a time when fear of God...or at least fear of Hell...was still a real thing and narcissism hadn't yet consumed the American Church? When I was taught this stuff there was no pervasive idea of "We're right, because we're us." There were only a few people like that.

I'm reminded of an exchange from the movie Crimson Tide between Captain Ramsey (Gene Hackman's character) and Commander Hunter (Denzel Washington's character) where Ramsey says to Hunter "God help you if you're wrong, son." (This regarding the possibility of a nuclear war) and Hunter replies "If I'm wrong, God help us all."

And that, to me, is an example of having an implicit understanding of the immanence of consequences for one's actions and the idea that there's ultimate outcomes one may not control.

Instead, today, too many people believe only in the immanence of their own Empire of lies.

Why else would we be in a situation where every decade or so there's a new False Prophet with a prediction of some event like the Rapture, and for the most part those False Prophets get away with it??

People gave their life savings and shit to Harold Camping, and Camping was never forced to pay that shit back or held responsible, at least not until after he had already died in disgrace.

Too many people have lost the idea that there's ultimately a set of consequences for one's actions or beliefs that one does not control...or perhaps lost the idea that We are not God??

I used to laugh at a line in the Left Behind series novel "Tribulation Force" where the authors, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, have some non-Christian religious person saying something to the effect of "God is above us and around us and in us, God is us, We are God." In fact, I think the person they had saying this was supposed to have been a Rastafari and that is not, by any stretch of the imagination, what Rastas believe.

I mean, I guess some of These Fucking People have always been both lying sacks of shit and masters of Projection.

'Cause now it's the Evangelical Christians who think they are God or at least that they can bullshit God into basically being an extension of their own collective or individual will for the sole aim of getting what they think they want.

They don't want the Truth.

They want the lie.

And they don't care what comes of it, even if they go to Hell.

But if God can be manipulated by Man, then He is not God.

And I'm just sayin' at this point you'd think that would be obvious. If God is who they say he is, then you can't lie your way into Heaven. It's only in this world that those of us who believe in the Truth are going to have to fight for it, not up there.

You cannot escape being Judged.

Remember that, because it's going to be on the test later.

Слава Україна!

Hess: So what shall we toast to, boys? I can blather on about “To health” or “To success,” but I’d like to do somethin’ a little less rote. Where you from, Brown Eyes?

Migs Mayfield: How ’bout a toast to Operation Cinder?

Hess: Now there’s a man who knows his history.

Mayfield: No, I don’t just know it. I lived it. I was in Burnin Konn.

Hess: Burnin Konn?

Mayfield: Mmm.

Hess: That was a hard day. I had to make many unpleasant decisions.

Mayfield: Yes, you did. Entire city gone in moments, along with everybody in it. We lost our whole division that day. Man, that was like 5-10,000 people.

Hess: Yep. All heroes of the Empire.

Mayfield: Yeah. And all dead.

Hess: Well, it’s a small sacrifice for the greater good, son.

Mayfield: Depends on who you ask, don’t you think?

Hess: [irritated] What you gettin’ at, trooper?

Mayfield: All those people, the ones who died, was it good for them? Hmm? Their families? The guys I served with? Civilians, those poor mud scuffers, died defending their homes, fighting for freedom. Was it good for them?

Hess: But we’ve outlasted them, son. They’re eating themselves alive. The New Republic is in complete disarray, and we grow stronger. You see, with the rhydonium you’ve delivered, we can create havoc that’s gonna make Burnin Konn pale by comparison. And then they’re gonna turn to us once again. You see, boys, everybody thinks they want freedom, but what they really want is order. And when they realize that, they’re gonna welcome us back with open arms. Ah. To the Empire.

[Mayfield chuckles, then fires a blaster at Hess' chest, killing him instantly. He and Mando then shoot their way out of the mess hall] ~From The Mandalorian, Season 2, Ep. 7 "The Believer"

I guess the question to ask is, what else are these motherfuckers lying to you about??

Left Behind Is A Lie (Rapture, One.)

The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that he would shew them a sign from heaven.

He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red.

And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?

A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed. ~Matthew 16:1-4

...

Eli Sunday: Daniel, I'm asking if you'd like to have business with the Church of the Third Revelation in developing this lease on young Bandy's thousand acre tract. I'm offering you to drill on one of the great undeveloped fields of Little Boston!  

Daniel Plainview: I'd be happy to work with you.

Eli Sunday: You would? Yes, yes, of course. That’s wonderful.

Daniel Plainview: But there is one condition for this work.

Eli Sunday: All right.

Daniel Plainview: I'd like you to tell me that you are a false prophet. I'd like you to tell me that you are, and have been, a false prophet, and that God is a superstition.

~From the film There Will Be Blood.

...

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

So, the Rapture was supposed to have been yesterday.

It wasn't, we're all still here.

Sorry, but you'd think these fucking people would have figured it out by now. The Rapture isn't in the Bible, it's a doctrine that was made up by a guy named John Nelson Darby in the 19th Century and popularized by another guy named Cyrus Ingersoll Scofield (also a former Confederate soldier, so there's that) after Darby's death.

I was here for Y2K, Harold Camping, 2012, and a number of other apocalyptic predictions that never went mainstream. They're all crap.

Let me give you a hint about what's really going on with this, yo.

I think if it had been, if all these motherfuckers would have just gone "Poof!" they'd have been mad about that, too.

Because as much as they like the idea of sitting up there in (allegedly) Heaven, watching the rest of us suffer...These Fucking People are damn well desperate to live in some kind of magical world of angels and demons, ghosts and goblins, haints and spooks and a monster under every bed, vampires stalking the night and witches and wizards and werewolves (Never mind that most of these people would never make it in a world like that...they'd be upset about missing out on it.

They wouldn't survive if all that was real, but they think they'd get it on "Easy" difficulty level or some shit. All this, just to confirm their fearful superstitious controlling worldview and ravening desire to go about armed to the teeth for no reason. 

Hell, they'd probably demand God send them back.

Mostly because, in Heaven as presented in all the holy books...there's no one to fight against.

And given how these idiots conduct themselves I could see that wish being granted, too.

Yes, I could see God getting sick of this shit in a hurry.

Because most of these fucking people's crap has nothing whatever to do with God. It's all about them. It's not religion, it's narcissism with a heavy dose of religiosity and sensuality, but that second part is vaguely hidden and only for certain people at the end of the day. They really do get kinda mad if somebody from one of their (for lack of a better term) lower classes gets lucky.

Meanwhile the upper classes be it in "Conservatism" itself or in a given church get to do whatever they want, as does anybody sufficiently associated with them...I'm talking drinking, drugs, sex lives that'd shame a troop of Bonobos, etc...just so they're facedown crying about and begging Republican Jesus for forgiveness for it all at the altar call the next Sunday.

Don't believe me?

Evidently Erika Kirk is starting a "Conservative Christian" dating site and says she'll be on it.

Wait what the fuck??

I mean, I've known a grieving widow or two in my time.

Yes, some widows move on quick, most in my experience don't.

One of my aunts had a hell of a time dealing with it for a couple years after my uncle died, to the point of taking his ashes with her when she traveled. Me and my girlfriend and my Mom occasionally joked (when she wasn't around) about taking my uncle for a swim because we all thought it was creepy.

We didn't tell my aunt that, though.

I get that people deal with death in different ways but setting yourself up as the Queen Alpha Bitch of your own dating site does strike me as kind of inappropriate...if somebody is actually grieving.

No, I don't give a damn if that sounds judgmental. Something strikes me as genuinely wrong about all this.

I've at least been honest in saying I didn't like Charlie Kirk, I didn't hate him, but I do think it was wrong that he got shot. I seem to recall something about killing/murder being a Sin.

And what gets me about this, the more I look at it, nobody in the Republican elite is actually acting like they cared all that much about Charlie Kirk. Turning his memorial into a Trump rally doesn't seem to have gone over well and since they can't find anything to weaponize his assassination against the "Left" they're already trying again with some shooting in Dallas.

But that one actually targeted ICE prisoners, rather than agents.

Likely that shooter will turn out to have been either right-wing or some kind of incoherent internet nihilist nut-job also.

And they'll be mad about that, too.

Because the one thing they think they want more than some kind of magical Dungeons & Dragons type world where they can have magical powers is a Civil War where they can kill their mostly-made-up "Enemies" and get away with it.

Except wars, Civil and otherwise, tend not to work like that. The enemy gets to do their fair share of killing, too. The enemy gets a vote in what happens, and pretty often it's the dumber faction that lacks a grounding in reality and refuses to understand their opposition that loses the war.

And do you think people who lost their shit when professional sports got paused for months or they couldn't go to the store without a mask on are gonna have the discipline it takes to fight or even to just live in a wartime environment??

I don't.

Among other things, these fucking people seek after signs and wonders because they are weak and faithless people.

They've simply convinced themselves that everybody else is weaker.

They really do seem to think they're going to come up against "Hippies" that'll bring a bong to a gunfight. Trouble is, most of the alleged hippies that I'm aware of these days, the hippies and most of the people with the crystals and the horoscopes and the tarot cards and shit...are either MAGA's or very MAGA-adjacent and they have been since 2020 and COVID-19 in particular.

None of this is going to work out how they think it will.

Wars, civil and otherwise, are bloody and nasty and by definition unholy events.

This Christian Jihadism will end badly for the Christians, not least because Christ Himself would stand against such a thing.

Christianity was supposedly founded in peace, by a God-man, but it's actually been a vehicle for some pretty nasty shit, historically, and it seems like God didn't do very much about that. 

Secular ideals like democracy and freedom generally have to be propagated and then defended by people.

There's a reason most organized religion doesn't just leave people the fuck alone, it doesn't have much to do with itself if people aren't obligated to do something or other.

And that's basically the flaw in the whole world-view. They simply don't understand and cannot process being told "No."

The thing is, I really do think These Fucking People are dumb enough to simply destroy themselves. The problem now is they wanna take everybody else down with them.

They want to destroy the village to save it, because they think doing so will preserve their Power. 

But as for the rest of us? You either believe in freedom or you don't.

You're either willing to fight for it or you're not.

Nobody has to play their bullshit.

Left Behind is a Lie.

But then, that's why there ain't no Rapture. God or Jesus or the Universe or whatever looked at John Nelson Darby's crap doctrine and just said "LOL, No."

So can you.

Remember that.

We don't have to do this shit to ourselves or put up with it.

Слава Україна!

I believe in no God, no invisible man in the sky. But there is something more powerful than each of us, a combination of our efforts, a Great Chain of industry that unites us. But it is only when we struggle in our own interest that the chain pulls society in the right direction. The chain is too powerful and too mysterious for any government to guide. Any man who tells you different either has his hand in your pocket, or a pistol to your neck. ~Andrew Ryan, Bioshock

Last Post

When I was sixteen I won a great victory. I felt in that moment that I should live to be a hundred, now I know I shall not see thirty. None of us know our end really, or what hand will guide us there. A King may move a man, a father may claim a son. That man can also move himself. And only then does that man truly begin his own game. Remember that how so ever you are played, or by whom, your soul is in your keeping alone. Even though those who presume to play you be kings or men of power. When you stand before God, you cannot say "but I was told by others to do thusly" or that "virtue was not convenient at the time." This will not suffice. Remember that. ~The Leper King, from the film Kingdom Of Heaven.