You told me a preacher went to San Bernardino after the shootings
and spoke to the stunned crowd already bewildered and heartbroken
about how Jesus Christ is the Savior--
just believe in the Lord and you will be saved--
just as preachers do all around the world filled with terrified, traumatized souls
who had the veil of blissful obliviousness rent from their eyelids
by barrel bombs and bullets and sarin and chlorine gas,
dizzy from spinning into the black void of the unpredictable future,
and they cried "Yes" and were baptized into faith
"...and it was a glorious testament to God's power..."
you said with your eyes enlarged in religious fervor,
"...that so many were saved..."
And listening I wanted to scream:
Don't you know that you have sown the seeds of dogma
into the field of ignorance and oversimplicity,
that will bloom into the flowers of ego and self-righteousness and fanaticism,
which will bear the fruit of hatred and discrimination
that permeates the present time with vitriol
by capitalizing on fear?
Don't you know that you have given your children
the tools to refuse reasoning, to refute science,
to excuse purposeful self-sedation,
to cling to mythology, under the warm blanket of false security?
"...and they were saved in time, too, because
if you look from January of just this year, the birthing pangs are coming
closer and closer together--every day there is violence..."
"There has always been violence every day,"
I retort, "we were simply deaf and blind to it."
"No, but God is coming back in this age," you insisted.
And I knew not whether to cry or to laugh,
or to do both, for in my mind
I could imagine the Jews awaiting their Messiah
while suffering in slavery in Egypt
and then in Babylon
in constant fear of dying
and certain that they were experiencing birthing pangs
and the early disciples awaiting the return of their King
under the upheaval of Tiberius' murder
and Claudius' wars
and Nero's reign of terror
on and on and on
through all the conflicts of the centuries
to WWII's slaughtering of 80 million people
and Vietnam's senselessness
and the idiocy of Bush in Iraq.
There have been wars and "birthing pangs"
since there have been man walking the face of the earth
and He has not returned
because He will never return
because He is not real.
What you admire is the nature of uneducated, unenlightened man,
following the beliefs of a faith that was established
when the majority of humans believed that shooting stars
were messages from the gods foretelling destruction,
reenacting the history of man since the dawn of mankind
(that when there are two groups of humans
one will subjugate the other and adopt the false idea of superiority
and believe that God, or the gods, are surely for them,
love them,
care for them,
will save them,
and created a New Jerusalem, Olam Ha-Ba, or Jannah for those who suffer.
How else can a person who cannot accept that
bad things just happen because science and probabilities
justify the shit that is this world being doused upon his head
with the rising of the sun?
No, it is easier to believe that there is a God who has a purpose
for the terrifying chaos, and that the end is not really the end
for the saved and the chosen,
because as surely as Christians teach that they are the Chosen Ones,
so do the Muslims, and the Jews.
Each faith believes they are the true believers--
the only commonality is that there is a powerful God
and an eternal future for the saved ones,
because it is less terrifying than admitting there is no one there to save you
and you must do the best you can
with the time you have, and live with the choices you make
in your own multiverse powerlessness.
Responsibility for your actions is terrifying,
and arbitrary time limits are even more petrifying,
so we shove the blame onto an imaginary omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient deity--
ask yourself how many queens and kings, emperors, presidents
have justified sending subjects to their death,
embroiling yet another generation in terror and bitterness, and said,
"We will win this war for surely God is with us."
Or how many mothers have said, when their child has lost life or limb,
"God must have a reason.")
What you praise when terrified people surrender themselves
to the idea of a higher being rescuing them
is not the return of God.
What you praise is the abandonment of logic
and the destruction of the hope for the next generation
to live an ethical, self-aware, and meaningful life
with the clarity of science
and reason
and empathy
and compassion.
