None To Quench It (95 Theses For America, One.)

1. Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said Poenitentiam agite, willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.

2. This word cannot be understood to mean sacramental penance, i.e., confession and satisfaction, which is administered by the priests.

3. Yet it means not inward repentance only; nay, there is no inward repentance which does not outwardly work divers mortifications of the flesh.

4. The penalty [of sin], therefore, continues so long as hatred of self continues; for this is the true inward repentance, and continues until our entrance into the kingdom of heaven.

5. The pope does not intend to remit, and cannot remit any penalties other than those which he has imposed either by his own authority or by that of the Canons.

6. The pope cannot remit any guilt, except by declaring that it has been remitted by God and by assenting to God’s remission; though, to be sure, he may grant remission in cases reserved to his judgment. If his right to grant remission in such cases were despised, the guilt would remain entirely unforgiven.

7. God remits guilt to no one whom He does not, at the same time, humble in all things and bring into subjection to His vicar, the priest.

8. The penitential canons are imposed only on the living, and, according to them, nothing should be imposed on the dying.

9. Therefore the Holy Spirit in the pope is kind to us, because in his decrees he always makes exception of the article of death and of necessity.

10. Ignorant and wicked are the doings of those priests who, in the case of the dying, reserve canonical penances for purgatory.

11. This changing of the canonical penalty to the penalty of purgatory is quite evidently one of the tares that were sown while the bishops slept.

12. In former times the canonical penalties were imposed not after, but before absolution, as tests of true contrition.

13. The dying are freed by death from all penalties; they are already dead to canonical rules, and have a right to be released from them.

14. The imperfect health [of soul], that is to say, the imperfect love, of the dying brings with it, of necessity, great fear; and the smaller the love, the greater is the fear.

15. This fear and horror is sufficient of itself alone (to say nothing of other things) to constitute the penalty of purgatory, since it is very near to the horror of despair.

16. Hell, purgatory, and heaven seem to differ as do despair, almost-despair, and the assurance of safety.

17. With souls in purgatory it seems necessary that horror should grow less and love increase.

18. It seems unproved, either by reason or Scripture, that they are outside the state of merit, that is to say, of increasing love.

19. Again, it seems unproved that they, or at least that all of them, are certain or assured of their own blessedness, though we may be quite certain of it.

20. Therefore by “full remission of all penalties” the pope means not actually “of all,” but only of those imposed by himself.

21. Therefore those preachers of indulgences are in error, who say that by the pope’s indulgences a man is freed from every penalty, and saved;

22. Whereas he remits to souls in purgatory no penalty which, according to the canons, they would have had to pay in this life.

23. If it is at all possible to grant to any one the remission of all penalties whatsoever, it is certain that this remission can be granted only to the most perfect, that is, to the very fewest.

24. It must needs be, therefore, that the greater part of the people are deceived by that indiscriminate and high-sounding promise of release from penalty.

25. The power which the pope has, in a general way, over purgatory, is just like the power which any bishop or curate has, in a special way, within his own diocese or parish.

26. The pope does well when he grants remission to souls [in purgatory], not by the power of the keys (which he does not possess), but by way of intercession.

27. They preach man who say that so soon as the penny jingles into the money-box, the soul flies out [of purgatory].

28. It is certain that when the penny jingles into the money-box, gain and avarice can be increased, but the result of the intercession of the Church is in the power of God alone.

29. Who knows whether all the souls in purgatory wish to be bought out of it, as in the legend of Sts. Severinus and Paschal.

30. No one is sure that his own contrition is sincere; much less that he has attained full remission.

31. Rare as is the man that is truly penitent, so rare is also the man who truly buys indulgences, i.e., such men are most rare.

32. They will be condemned eternally, together with their teachers, who believe themselves sure of their salvation because they have letters of pardon.

33. Men must be on their guard against those who say that the pope’s pardons are that inestimable gift of God by which man is reconciled to Him;

34. For these “graces of pardon” concern only the penalties of sacramental satisfaction, and these are appointed by man.

35. They preach no Christian doctrine who teach that contrition is not necessary in those who intend to buy souls out of purgatory or to buy confessionalia.

~Martin Luther, The 95 Theses 1-35.

...

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. ~Ezekiel 16:49-50 (NIV)

ICE agents shot a legally-permitted, carrying gun-owner in Minneapolis yesterday. He was there as an observer and was in fact a qualified observer, and Department of Veterans Affairs hospital nurse, likely a veteran himself (because that's how somebody even gets a job like that.) And of course the Trump administration is telling all type of lies about the dude, because they're a bunch of degenerate scum-fucks and there's no other way to put it than that.

Worse, the shooting itself may have been the result of a negligent discharge by one of these idiot "Agents." Of course they did, because none of this shit is ever about what These Fucking People say it is. This isn't about "Illegal" Immigrants, it's a terror campaign directed at everybody. You'll note all the people they've actually killed so far are legal American citizens that they de jure have no actual right to arrest or anything of the sort. It's hard to have rights when you're dead.

More to the point, "Christian" Nationalists like Joel Webbon seem to think all this is funny.

Seek the Lord and ye shall live, lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and there be none to quench it in Bethel. ~Amos 5:6

Makes one wonder what happened to "Thou Shalt Not Kill?"

Ya know, I'm old enough to remember when this sort of degenerate absolute horseshit started to be tolerated, and outright lies became acceptable because These Fucking People wanted to fashion a narrative of some kind of "Persecution."

So they did away with "Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness" first, and let the parents of one of the victims of the Columbine school shooting use their daughter's death to get rich and famous by claiming she'd been killed for affirming her Christianity to one of the shooters. The truth is the incident did happen, but it was another kid, not her. The killers let that kid go. Of course the Truth never stopped a damned fake-religious church grifter. If you don't think you can draw a line right from that kind of shit straight to Donald Trump and the outright removal of Christ from Evangelical Christianity? You're wrong, I'm not sorry for pointing it out and it really is that damned simple.

And as a result, there are no beliefs, no Commandments and no rights that These Fucking People feel they are bound to respect.

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

Why?? Because the people who held people to those kind of standards without there even needing to be any laws involved got comfortable, and started to prefer comforting lies and dopamine hits to the Truth.

Bigotry, Bullshit and Narcissism replaced Doctrine, Faith, and Theology. Secular political "Conservatism" began to be taught as Christianity. These Fucking People publicly railed against moral relativism and situational ethics, but they privately practiced them far more than any Liberal in Bill Clinton's America as it was at the time.

Fuck, I was one of the people trying to call this shit out, although without the vocabulary that I have now.

For all the good it did.

And hell, since yesterday these fuckers have now, finally, done something that's starting to cut into the base of those 18% to 20% of Americans that were still ride-or-die for George W. Bush in October of 2008. Fuck, even the NRA got off its ass! And they're trying to forge ahead anyway.

Welcome to the Rebellion, guys.

I guarantee you people like my partner's aunt and cousin and all these other "Trump Dick Riders" as my kid calls them, will still be all in, though.

I found out yesterday that one of the cousins stole a bunch of kiddo's stuff that I ordered off Amazon for her. Fuck it, I ordered that shit again right then. I'll go without before I let the Leeches have a win.

So yeah, what happened to "Thou Shalt Not Steal??"

That's the thing, These Fucking People ride Trump's dick because they see him as granting them an Indulgence to be their worst selves, at all times, in all cases, and still feel righteous about it.

And apparently you ain't even gotta be old enough to vote to cash in.

If anybody wonders why I'm very specific about the fact that we need an American Reformation, that's why.

The only thing These Fucking People believe in is Taking Advantage Of Others, and they're teaching that to their kids, too.

But to point out the case of Cassie Bernall from the late 1990's there, these motherfuckers will gladly fuck over each other or even their own children in pursuit of whatever sort of profit they think they'll get.

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

And that shit can and will get much worse, because they'll keep going until they're openly worshiping the Void itself and they've consumed and stolen everything if the rest of us let them.

I'm honestly starting to wonder if Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" was a prophetic warning?

You either believe in freedom or you don't, America.

Truth is the only floor most of us have to stand on to push back against Power.

And it really is that simple.

These monsters really do wanna start a fire and for there to be none to quench it.

But it won't be the Lord.

Remember that.

The clocks stopped at one seventeen. There was a long shear of bright light, then a series of low concussions. By day the dead impaled on spikes along the road. I think it's October but I can't be sure. I haven't kept a calendar for five years. Each day is more gray than the one before. It is cold and growing colder as the world slowly dies. No animals have survived and all the crops are long gone. Soon all the trees in the world will fall. The roads are peopled by refugees towing carts and gangs carrying weapons, looking for fuel and food. Within a year there was fire on the ridges and deranged chanting. There has been cannibalism. Cannibalism is the great fear. Mostly I worry about food. Always food. Food and the cold and our shoes. Sometimes I tell the boy old stories of courage and justice - difficult as they are to remember. All I know is the child is my warrant and if he is not the word of God, then God never spoke. ~The Man, from Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" (Film.)

Prequel

Look! The moonlight shows us for what we really are! We are not among the living, and so we cannot die. But neither are we dead! For too long, I've been parched of a thirst with nothin' to quench it. Too long I've been starvin' to death and haven't died. I feel nothin'. Not the wind on my face nor the spray of the sea, nor the warmth of a woman's flesh. [steps out into the moonlight, revealing his skeletal form] You best start believin' in ghost stories, Miss Turner. You're in one!

~Hector Barbossa, Pirates Of The Caribbean; Curse Of The Black Pearl.

Bonus Content

I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen. ~Martin Luther