Not Again, Pat!

Warning: This post is about "God", so some of you might just want to turn around and leave now. For those of you who wish to stay, I'm just making a notation that I use the terms "God" and "He" because it makes it easier to describe a concept. I need to refer to this "Divine Mass of Energy and Intelligent Existence" as something - and the term "God" works well enough for me.
However, the "He" thing is just because I need a pronoun and we live in a patriarchal society. I really don't believe "God" can really be "limited" by something as crazy as a gender. If you're OK with this...then proceed. - Hammy.

Well, you wouldn't think it was possible to do, but I hear Pat Robertson has topped the "Hugo Chavez assassination Request" comment, made one August on his TV program "The 700 Club" . His current comment is about Ariel Sharon's hemorrhagic stroke being "divine punishment for dividing God's land."
Woo. People like him just make me shudder. What a crass, insensitive and stupid thing to say. Not to mention incendiary, anti-Semitic and cruel. (What an ignorant ass.) In the past, he had referred to Sharon as "a very tender-hearted man and a good friend." Jeez. With friends like that who needs enemies? I don't see much difference between this action and the actions of those who celebrated the deaths and destruction of the Twin Towers. They believed that event was also God's "divine retribution" on the Great Satan that is the United States.

Ya know, when I first started this blog, I figured I was going to comment on things that were mostly political. I hadn't really made up my mind about whether or not to comment about "religious issues" because I know there are so many fruity cakes out there; with a Bible propped in one hand (verse at the ready) and and a (figurative, or sometimes literal) gun in the other hand. Just a blastin' away. Trying to "make their point" all over the place. Using a Bible like a weapon - just waiting to tear somebody "less holy" apart. Flinging verses all over the place like throwing knives. I have known many of these people in the past and they are as obtuse and retrograde as they come.

My ex used to say, "There is none so blind as those who will not see." And they're all so sure they have the answers. The privileged few. If you try to tell them any different - about anything - then your branded with a whole host of names they use (much like "environmentalist" is used to discredit, slander and marginalize anyone who cares about the water they drink and the air they breathe). This way, none of them will have to open their minds enough to actually THINK about what is being said. They can leave their minds snapped shut - tighter than a misers wallet. Like the Bad Guest at a party, they suddenly decide they have the right to start limiting who gets in and who doesn't, act like they own the place, and are obnoxious as all hell.

I once heard a preacher say "Religion" is man's attempt at pulling God down, stuffing Him in a compartment (never mind about all those parts that don't fit in very well - we can just leave those out), slapping a label on the outside of it and saying "This is what God is. This is what God says. This is what God likes and doesn't like, and I have the answers and if you say or think otherwise - then you don't know God." (Personally, I don't think anyone with two hands and two feet is capable of taking on that kind of job.) "Spirituality", however, is man's attempt to reach out and touch the Divine.

I always liked that. I wish I could remember who said it, so as to give them credit, but I refer back to it often when I have the rare, but unpleasant occasion of dealing with "religious" people.

I always felt or thought, that "God" or whatever..."Something"...existed, and I decided I wanted to know what that thing was - without anyone defining it for me. So, I started looking for God.

To make a long story short, basically I found that if I looked...I found Him, and I found Him in many places. Whether I sat in a "Church" a "Cathedral" a "Synagogue" or a "Temple"..."He" was there...In all of them. I'm not one of those people who is so smugly sure I have "The Answer", have a bead on "God" and a good idea of whose going to the nice place or the nasty place or any other place. I know there are plenty of people out there who are quite sure they have all that information...and more. All I know is if I looked for "Him"...He was there. I don't pretend to have the answers, but I figured if God doesn't need to be limited by labels, then why should I. So, if anyone really needs to slap a label on me I tell 'em I'm a Born Again Roman Catholic Jewish Buddhist. And let them figure it out.

I decided that God's vest has many pockets. And that's kind of where I leave it. God is a concept that is way too big for me (or anyone else, really) to crunch down into nice little easy sound bites. I don't know what God is. I don't know what God wants, or thinks or who's invited to the party, or even if there is a party. How do I know? I do know God is there; inside me and outside me, and all around me. I know God loves me, I know God laughs at me (I think He really gets a kick out of old Hammy sometimes), I know God protects me, I know God guides me, I know God waits for me....to seek Him out and when I do God is there. He's always been there. There is nothing any one of these goofballs can say or do to shake me from the truth that God loves me (and everyone else by the way) and He is happy with me, and if He isn't....He'll tell me. He always does. He always has. And not with strokes and evilness, either.

I know that God isn't out there setting trip wires or landmines for me, He's not whipping out a scorecard every five minutes - adding and deducting points throughout the day, God isn't perched there waiting to pounce on me when I "fuck up", God isn't sitting around cooking up mad evil schemes every day, God isn't insecure, hateful and neurotic like many of the people who claim to be following Him are. And I know God sure as shit isn't "talking" to all the people who claim to be "talking" to Him!

I don't know this god of Hate; this vengeful, cruel and sadistic thing that Pat Robertson calls "God". I don't know this god who strikes people down with strokes, and waits like a big Cosmic Flyswatter, just waiting for one false move. If Pat Robertson's God has some answers for the Middle East then why doesn't He speak up? They're trying their best to create some kind of workable peace in an area filled with fanatics, mercenaries and terrorists and could sure use some constructive and useful help. Christ! Who wants to believe in a God that keeps his mouth shut until you do something wrong and then whacks the crap out of you? What a psycho version of God!
All I can say, is if that version of God is the real thing, and if all of "those people" are going to be packing Heaven like sardines...Then they can have it.
Because it sounds like Hell to me.

But...It's just my onion pi.