House Of Devils (American Abominations, Two.)

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats:
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
For I hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
For I hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. 

~Matthew 25:31-45

...

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

I'm starting to notice a pattern lately.

The other night, I saw a post over on Threads where some idiot referred to Trump as his "Lord" and said that Melania Trump was the luckiest woman alive because she "Got to kiss the Lord every night."

Unfortunately, I couldn't find the post to screenshot it when I went looking for it.

Well then, the night after that, I got hit on at work by a (married) customer who also knows I have a partner. 

Not sure how religious she is for real but she always wears a crucifix necklace and has come in occasionally wearing Christian-themed T-shirts.

Then it happened again a couple nights later, this time via Facebook Messenger by a Pentecostal ex-girlfriend, even though she's also married and knows I have a partner (via Facebook posts, at least) and she waited until she figured out that my partner was working before making her move.

Well, this person allegedly was my friend so, because it was on my mind anyway I was talking not only about the Lord's Word...but specifically the conservative Christian interpretation outlined in the Campus Crusade For Christ "Four Spiritual Laws" (per the snipped images) 'cause I'm sorry, but I very much do feel like nobody needs to go find Jesus more than the American conservative Christian church at this time.

The basic points are: 

#1 God loves you and has a plan for your life.

#2 Man is Sinful and separated from God.

#3 Jesus Christ and his Substitutionary Atonement is God's only provision for Man's Sin

#4 We must each individually accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

And the lady I was talking to is somebody I had discussed this stuff with at length at various points when we were dating back in 2005. We had also worked together briefly.

She had the nerve to at least claim to not know what I was talking about, and then noped out of the conversation. When I told her "No" and that I have a partner and I'm not going to cheat, and told her I wasn't down with her transactional mentality nor her lack of understanding things like faith, love and loyalty, she ghosted me and blocked me on Facebook.

And at the same time, the last few days I've been seeing lots of Evangelical types defending Trump's destruction of the East Wing of the White House and the impending shutdown of SNAP due to the ongoing government shutdown.

Seriously, is Christianity (conservative or otherwise) just an Aesthetic to these fucking people??

Like, sorry but according to what I was actually taught, in Church, nobody (least of all God) cares if you act all holy but you ain't or if you look all religious and shit but then don't follow.

Nobody ever got Saved by an aesthetic or things looking a certain way.

If you're not willing to do the work of the Heart, either concerning yourself or helping others then why bother??

If "Love Thy Neighbor" is too hard...why are you going around claiming to follow the guy who preached it??

The Gospels are full of stories of Jesus calling out that type of shit directly!

Then Jesus spoke to the multitude, and to his disciples,

Saying The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:

All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.

For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.

But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments,

And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues,

And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.

But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.

Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.

But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.

And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. ~Matthew 23:1-15

Just sayin.'

To put things rather less than delicately, what the fuck are we even doing here??

I am, in fact, starting to feel like yes, These Fucking People absolutely would bow down before Golden Idols of Donald Trump because they're not just faithless, they're apparently desperate for a "god" that they can see and hear and all that.

Nebuchadnezzar spoke and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?
Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
~Daniel 3:14-18

There's something very wrong, here.

And it's to the point where I'm starting to wonder, if a bunch of Demons showed up, wearing suits, with an army of followers, talking all "Conservative" and shit and allowing hatred of LGBT people, POC and women...would These Fucking People resist or would they fall for the spiel and bow down??

(Don't answer that, or rather, I'm afraid I know what the answer is. Yes, they fucking would.)

These Fucking People would rather sacrifice their own children to Moloch than love their neighbors, at this point.

And it's more than just the traditional Republican love of misery and being a shitty person.

Ain't none of this shit about Jesus now, if it ever really was.

And the longer all this shit drags on, the more convinced I become that these Republicans and shit would gladly inflict all the torments of Revelation on America and the world if they thought it would hide their blasphemies and perversions and thefts.

Evil has become an addiction for these motherfuckers.

They have turned the Church into a House of Devils and raised up idols of Dis Pater and Mammon while throwing down the Cross of Christ and then trampling on it.

I'm serious.

It's stuff like that, that's what I've been talking about since I came up with the whole idea of American Revelation as a concept way back in *Checks Notes* February of 2018.

It's coming down to the point of either you believe in freedom or you don't and you're willing to fight for it or you aren't.

Either you're willing to stand up and push back against the fall of night or you're not.

How can the Church do that when so much of it starts off by forfeiting the one thing, Truth, that would even give it a floor to stand on to push back against worldly Power??

When is enough going to be Enough??

Best do something now, because if you're trying to make excuses when you stand before God, it'll be too late.

Слава Україна!

Karis Nemik: There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try. ~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E12 "Rix Road."

One

"I didn't want to do it,'' he hears himself saying. "I didn't want to leave them behind.''

The void laughs at him. There are miles of empty air beneath his dangling feet. "You had no choice.''

"Yes I did! I didn't have to come here.'' He pauses. "I didn't have to do anything,'' he says quietly, and inhales another lungful of death. "It was all automatic. Maybe it was inevitable.''

"-- Evitable,'' echoes the distant horizon. Something dark and angular skims across the stars, like an echo of extinct pterosaurs. Turbofans whirring within its belly, the F-117A hunts on: patrolling to keep at bay the ancient evil, unaware that the battle is already lost. "Your family could still be alive, you know.''

He looks up. "They could?'' Andrea? Jason? "Alive?''

The void laughs again, unfriendly: "There is life eternal within the eater of souls. Nobody is ever forgotten or allowed to rest in peace. They populate the simulation spaces of its mind, exploring all the possible alternative endings to their life. There is a fate worse than death, you know.'' 

~From A Colder War, a novella by Charles Stross.