Obama is God

We are experiencing trying times.  Law enforcement officers are shot on the job.  Horrible, scary events that should never happen.  Unarmed men and women are shot by police.  Horrible, scary events that should never happen.  We see all this as a new problem.  It is not.  We have had separate but unequal races in this country for generations.  More of one race in prison.  More of one race dies via gunshot wounds.  More of one race experiences unemployment.  More of one race in colleges.  More of one race teaching in the classrooms.  More of one race in law enforcement.  We are lopsided.  We can scream all day that these differences are due to the behaviors of one race more than another.  Perhaps.  But we should be screaming that we must stop judging people by skin pigment, hair style, holes poked in their bodies, ink injected under their skin, and the relationship between their belly buttons and the top of their pants.  (I have contended all along that if teenage girls simply laughed at and refused to date any teenage boy who allowed his underwear to show above his belt the fad would disappear quickly.)

The problems are huge, both races have responsibilities.  Both races have tough steps to take to fix it because both races must modify their culture and their beliefs to end the disparity in data that confirms one race is treated differently and/or behaves differently than another.  That will be very hard.  Or so I thought.

Until I listened to my conservative friends.  Perhaps I should say my very conservative friends.  My moderately conservative friends and my liberal friends are not promoting the same message.  Just those folks on the far right.  Only they have seen the light.  And here is what they are saying.

The violence in our country is Obama’s fault.  Shooting police officers is Obama’s fault.  Increased racial tension is Obama’s fault.  Still no affordable universal health insurance is Obama’s fault.  Proliferation of semi-automatic rifles is Obama’s fault.  Probably sexual harassment at Fox News is Obama’s fault.  He caused it all.  He did it.  He is the villain!

If they are right, then Obama is God.  I have been praying to God to stop the violence, but Obama still made it happen.  I have been praying to God to stop senseless shootings of suspects and police, but Obama still made it happen.  Therefore I guess I should agree with my conservative friends that not only is Obama at fault, he is more powerful than we ever imagined.  More powerful than the god I followed.  It is time to worship Obama, pray to Obama, and ask him please to stop all the violence, all the killings.  If he caused it, he can stop it.  I am so surprised that enterprising right wingers have not marched out evidence of Obama’s deity status which should be easier for them to get than his birth certificate, and establish the Church of Obama, tax free. 

Why, now that we know Obama is a god the violence in France must be his fault too!  In fact, violence everywhere must be his doing.  Intolerance of other races everywhere must be his fault too!  Even global warming must be his fault. 

Yes dear conservatives, such a powerful deity merits our awe and respect.  Thank you for enlightening me.

Imagine

I am inspired by the Facebook post of a dear friend.  My friend has a friend in dire straits both financially and mentally.  Her FB post was addressed to Prayer Warriors seeking prayers for her needy friend.  And I thought, her friend does not need prayer and prayers will not help.  Her friend needs money and professional support.  Prayer feels like a cop-out.  I pray and I have done my part and the need goes on unabated.  So, why do we do this?  Why don’t I hop in the car, find her friend, buy her breakfast, and take her to a clinic?  Why do we seek the path least likely to be of real help?  So, I imagined:

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today.
 John Lennon - Imagine Lyrics | MetroLyrics 

OK, John.  Let’s try to imagine a planet where no one believes in gods or an after-life.  There is no religion.  I think I can see some of the characteristics of such a life and the subsequent impact on human culture and behavior.  So, I will imagine.

If there is no heaven, no hell then we know that when we die we simply die.  We are done.  Self-awareness ends.  We have no fear of hell and no aspiration for heaven.  We all know that all we have is the time here and now.  Today.  I have no sense of anything before my birth and will have no sense of anything after my death.  We know we will not be greeted by loved ones already dead.  We will not “pass” as though there is somewhere else to go.  We will park, turn off the engine and never move.  We will not stand before a deity and be judged for our actions.  We have had our life and it is over.  Period.

As a species we would be intolerant of misery, pain and anguish.  If this is all we have, if today is all we get, then we have an obligation to ourselves to improve the quality of today as best we can.  We quickly realize that improving the quality of my life requires the improvement of the quality of all lives.  The tide raises all boats.  We can no longer promise those who suffer that they shall be rewarded in the next life because there is no next life.  We must fix the problem now.

If we knew the above and had followed such beliefs I think we would be much further down the road to a real utopia.  Disease would have been vanquished, hunger and thirst abolished.  Heartbreaks due to loss of a loved one would remain, but the understanding that we will never see them again is likely to make our time with them here and now much more meaningful.  Why care for my aging mom if I believe I will spend eternity with her?  Why mend fences with others if I believe I am either religiously justified in my offense, or I will have eternity to build a new fence?  I believe we would take each other much more seriously and would be much more supportive.  The numbers who have acquiesced in their misery due to a promise of a better life would drop to zero. 

Science would have made many more advances un-restricted by ancient sayings that we prove to be false.  There would be no persecution for new discoveries, there would be celebrations.

All those who died and suffered in wars triggered by religious belief would not have done so.  No one would care to fight for their faith if there was no such thing as Christianity or Islam, etc.  We would not have had witch trials or the Inquisition.  We would not have had lynch mobs.  If we worked to improve the quality of human life across the board, we would have no need for firearms or armies.

We would have an incredible amount of resources that are now and have been tied up in religious operations.  We would not need clergy, we would not need churches, and we would not need missionaries.  We would all be missionaries for a higher quality of human life and we could pursue such goals much better with more resources.

We would be healthier if we were living without fear of the after-life, the judgement yet to come, and the guilt for failing to achieve perfection.  We would have more time off and could celebrate our loved ones rather than spend the hours we do sitting in silence listening to fictions on Sunday morning.  We would be supportive of individual rights regarding our bodies and lives.  Those who choose to die could be helped and supported rather than treat them as criminals and mentally ill.  Those who choose abortions would not be treated as killers but would be treated as anyone is treated when they opt to remove a tumor.  Human life would not be viewed as de facto “sacred.”  It would be viewed as a once in a lifetime experience with each human making decisions regarding how they will live and end their lives.

We would have more understanding of our appetites and would have found healthy ways to satisfy those appetites without committing harm to ourselves or others.  Food, sex, drugs, and other addictions would not be judged but would be sated sans judgement.  Human physical reality and appetites would not be viewed as inherently evil, but would be viewed as simple attributes of our life forms.  You have brown hair, green eyes and love to eat.

I see a planet where the quality of human life is much better than we have it today.  I see a planet with less war and conflict.  I see a planet with a greater appreciation for each other and the common good.  I see a planet that is in fact more moral than our current planet where religion runs rampant in the streets.  We would learn to trust ourselves and each other because trust in imaginary friends and deities never really existed.

I can imagine that.

I’m off to buy breakfast for a stranger.

Missed Opportunities

I sat with Mathew and read the Sermon on the Mount.  Amazing.  Over several chapters Jesus outlines what it means to be a Christian.  The Beatitudes are poetic and demonstrative, though I still have a few questions.  How have modern Christians missed the whole turn the other cheek and love your enemy theme?  But that is future fodder.

Despite the wealth of philosophical foundation present in these chapters I cannot help but think that while Jesus talked about the golden rule he missed some golden opportunities to make a few things more clear.  He was, after all, addressing a mostly illiterate crowd probably not steeped in subtle innuendo.  Direct statements could have really helped his followers then and now.  Plus, if he knew all things surely he knew the trials and tribulations to come and could have stopped much of it with a few more beatitudes or in depth explanations.  He did a great job of making it clear that we are to love our enemies and even used tax collectors as an example.  He did a great job of making it clear that the comfort of wealth is bad, that mourning and humility will be rewarded, etc.  (Has Trump read these?)  But there are other areas he seemed to avoid.

How about the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender folks?  Bible is pretty tough on such folks.  He fixed the whole notion of an eye for an eye, so why didn’t he fix the notion of persecuting people for their sexual identity and preference?

How about slavery?  I know, many claim that his message to free the oppressed addresses slavery, but that is pretty obscure for that audience, and even today some do not get it.  He could have simply said slavery is evil, no person should claim ownership of another person, human trafficking will get you sent directly to hell, and use of another human for your own personal wants is wrong.  Nope.  None of that was clear and Christian slave owners were around for eons, even today.

How about theocracy?  Did Jesus support a government grounded and supportive of one religion over another?  What would he have thought about the forthcoming proposed Islamic state?  What would he have thought about the current trend in America to push for a Christian nation under God?  That remains pretty vague.  I personally belief he would have opposed such chicanery and, if so, come right out and said that faith in God is not a governmental function and no people should make it the law of the land.  God is a personal God who created us both in His image as well as endowing us with free will.  If God wanted to mandate belief he could have done it somewhere around Adam and Eve.

How about military spending and individual ownership of firearms?  Man, could we use some holy standards on that today.  I suspect the entire “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemy” means we do not support weaponry and should pursue a path of pacifism.  But that is too big a leap for his audience then as well as his followers today.  When he blessed the peacekeepers wasn’t he really cursing the violence proponents?  We could have used some real clarity here.

There are other areas that are issues today that he could have addressed.  Is it nobler to pursue knowledge of the stars than pursue star wars weaponry?  Should education and science be pre-eminate in our pursuits, or should we simply continue to live as shepherds and carpenters?  When science seems to conflict with previous holy beliefs couldn’t he have said that God created the universe and endowed us with the curiosity to understand his universe.  All efforts toward seeking an understanding of the operation of God’s creation is good.  Scripture was not meant to compete with knowledge.  On and on I could go, but I think you get my drift.

If Jesus was God and was omnipotent and omniscient and knew these issues would cause great pain and turmoil in the years to come, why in the world did he not nip it in the bud?  Sure seems like either a condemnation of his omniscience or an erroneous missed opportunity.

Missed opportunities is the kindest conclusion.