Blood Libel and End Timers

When your religion clearly states that anyone who doesn't believe in Jesus is going to suffer through the great tribulation, then the term Blood Libel cannot mean anything other than it has for 2000 years. This isn't a dog whistle. It's a siren that can be heard around the world.

Representative Giffords is Jewish. Her aide, Mr. Zimmerman, was Jewish. Using the term Blood Libel is not a mistake here. It is an obvious call out to Sarah Palin's rapture-ready fans who anxiously await the return of Jesus, when anyone who doesn't accept Jesus as their savior (Jews) will be subjected to the great tribulation, a period of "...worldwide hardships, disasters, famine, war, pain and suffering, which will wipe out 75% of all life on the earth before part two of the Second Coming takes place." When your religion teaches crap like this, then violent imagery isn't just accepted, it's encouraged. It's religious.

This is also an attempt to portray herself as crucified by those who would use her political blood in their proverbial Matzos. She's dabbling in blood metaphors while she spouts off about American exceptionalism. This isn't code; it's all CAP LOCK all the time, a blatant shout out to the violent fans who share her violent religion.

Besides being sloppy politics, this is just a sickening extension of her violent imagery. Rather than cooling her blood lust, as her taking down of the target map suggested she might, she is ramping it up, this time to include anti-semitic slurs in her response to Jews being murdered and maimed. That takes a special kind of sick mind. To continue violent imagery after this tragedy is deranged, but it is not a mistake on her part. It is a blatant call to her End Timers: keep spewing forth the hate, keep ramping up the violent imagery, keep threatening those you disagree with, because Jesus will be back soon and as long as you believe in him you won't wind up in the great tribulation like the other non-believers. You can encourage violence and even commit it yourself as long as you repent and accept Jesus before it's too late. In fact, violence is down right God-like.

These people are truly sick. I think I'll go back to ignoring them.

Blog Round Up

Here's a quick review of the blogs I'm involved in producing...

Organic Gardening Blog. I've been gardening organically for most of my life, and blogging about the experience for many years now. I offer organic gardening advice, products, best practices, and more.

Internet Marketing and Organic SEO. I make web sites get higher search engine rankings, and I blog about how to do it so you can learn for free what to do to your websites to get higher ranks.

Free Desktop Wallpaper and Computer Backgrounds Photography. We've been posting free desktop wallpaper on our sites since we started Supak.com in 1996. We have cityscapes, high resolution nature photos, Hawaii pictures, and more at the Photog Blog.

Hawaii Blog. Hawaii vacations information and all the latest on everything Hawaiian that we post on any of our sites. Occasionally features guest bloggers from Hawaii.

Satan Wrote the Bible. This blog is written by a friend of mine and is full of Bible commentaries that serve as thought exercise for people who are so sure about what one cannot, by definition, be sure about.

Bush Treason Blog. That's right: I believe George Bush and many of his administration committed treason when they ignored warnings of an impending 9-11, pulled out of Tora Bora and let Bin Laden go, and lied us into a war against a country that had nothing to do with 9-11.

Los Angeles Catering Blog. Culinary Delight Catering in Los Angeles provides delicious food for any event at a reasonable price. No matter how fancy or simple the festivities, they can provide exactly the right catered food or craft services, including organic.

Grass-fed Beef Jerky Blog. We've started a small-batch, hand-made, grass-fed beef jerky business, and we now have a blog about grass-fed jerky and why eating grass-fed beef is better for you, the animal, and the planet.

Earthly Reflections on Imaginary Places

For me, it's just a silly question. Unanswerable. Why waste your time? Even people I know who take religion and heaven very seriously admit that it's a feeble attempt for puny humans to imagine the kingdom of God. Besides, as a militant agnostic (my young daughter reminded me years ago that I couldn't be an atheist because I have no faith), just trying to imagine the unimaginable gives credence to religion which has been the cause of so much of the world's problems (wars, over-population, child abuse).

My friend Thomas D., who writes the Bible Commentaries blog Satan Wrote the Bible, is more empathetic. He often tries to think like religious people, in order to better understand them, to better communicate with them... Perhaps to convince them that it is their certainty of that which one cannot be certain that causes most of the problems with religion.

In his latest post, What Is Heaven Like, Thomas D. immediately goes for the humor in the common view of heaven as full of gold and diamonds. Frankly, this ornate version of heaven is probably not as common as it might have been during the dark ages, when the Catholic Church was torturing people in the basements of their overly ornate cathedrals. Perhaps heaven back then was imagined as gold-plated as a way to shame the church over its feeble attempts at Godliness. Whatever. Thomas D. goes for the obvious for us nature jockeys.

Those who do try to describe heaven usually have a lot of gold, silver, diamonds and other jewels radiating bright light. I like to sink my god-given feet into the soil (I seldom wear shoes) so I can’t imagine a worse place than one made of hard metals with stones scattered about. Give me grass, shade trees and garden soil rich in humus. Fill the air with the scents of flowers, moldering leaves, ocean spray. Lift my spirits with chirping brooks and bird songs and, please, please let there be sex.

Reminds me of the song Heaven, by Loudon Wainwright III (So Damn Happy):

"There'll be lots of drinking in Heaven
Smoking and eating and sex
What you didn't do in this life bad for you
Will be totally cool in the next."

From what I know of biology, I think the clue worth walking away from here is "soil rich in humus." In my weird reductionist way, it seems that everything that dies eventually decomposes into the soil, which in turn supports new life (plants) that support more life (animals) that die and support the soil, in a kind of circle of circles. Even in the really long view, where stars are born and die, the matter that was us-come-soil-come-plant-come-animal-come-us-again goes on to be new rock, new soil, new mineral, new nutrient...

Perhaps it's way too humanist of me to accept an imperfect world as the best we can get, but when you put one persons unhappiness, or even despair, on the scale of a cold, indifferent universe, this existence of ours just keeps bouncing along in different forms randomly colliding and interacting forever, and that's about as heavenly as it's going to get.

Gently Cynical Progress: Learning from the Wisdom of Eric Hoffer

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.--Eric Hoffer, the Longshoreman Philosopher

When my daughter, who's about to cast her very first vote for Barack Obama, was 6, she told me I couldn't be an atheist, because I had no faith. What I have, dear girl, is a healthy cynicism. So healthy, in fact, that it often too vigorously cares, and should shut up.

A gentle cynic himself, Eric Hoffer was awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor, by Ronald Reagan. From his Wikipedia page:

Concerned about the rise of totalitarian governments, especially those of Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, he tried to find the roots of these "madhouses" in human psychology. He discovered that fanaticism and self-righteousness are rooted in self-hatred, self-doubt, and insecurity. As he describes in The True Believer, a passionate obsession with the outside world or with the private lives of other people is merely a craven attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one's own life.

Self-righteous fanaticism describes well the current state of Religion and the GOP. Considering the control that Evangelical Airmen have over the US Air Force, one could say it is a very well-armed self-righteous fanaticism that has worked its way into our government. The Evangelical GOP favorite Mike Huckabee offers a stunning example of the Religious Right's successes in running candidates who are more and more theocratic. For these fanatics, religion is not an opiate. It is a crow bar for prying into your rights. It invades our homes, enslaves our women, controls our bodies, decides our law, and fuels our wars.

The US Constitution says your "highest" law is just that. Yours. If your highest law tells you to dictate religion through government, too bad. We call that unconstitutional. You must be stopped. Fascism and theocracy are crimes in this country. It's not a question of right or left. Over two centuries of American Progress proves that free religion is necessary if we are to have any other freedoms. Freedom from religion seems to be the basis for Peace on Earth.

Whosoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.--2 Chr.15:13

With Gods like that, who needs Devils? How can any Christian read that and then criticize the Koran for calling for the murder of infidels? How can any Christian read that and let me live? I really don't care if there's a god or not, so I don't have to kill you. If you believe the Bible is the word of God, then you must kill me right now. Maybe you don't take the Bible literally. Maybe that just means you should pass amendments to the Constitution banning gay marriage and abortion while forcing prayer in public school and abstinence only sex education?

Maybe Satan wrote the Bible.

The Christian Right has slowly changed the GOP, which has painted itself into a red-white-and-blue cross-shaped corner. They are about to learn something else that Eric Hoffer learned about movements: without self-esteem, they go nowhere. Nothing demolishes self-esteem like failure.

Which brings me to George W Bush. His "...craven attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning..." probably feels downright Biblical to him. He thought God told him what to do. He thought wrong. Or Satan did it. Or something. Those left in the GOP who believe Bush has succeeded, that all is well, that Mike Huckabee will be the next President, will know the empty downsizing of failure soon enough. If Mike Huckabee wins the nomination, it will signal the end of Republican dominance in American politics.

Now we begin the slow, gently cynical progress toward sanity, reason, and tolerance.

Cross-posted at the Daily KOS and Street Prophets.