Have you ever thought about how you’ll spend eternity? I don’t mean Heaven or Hell, but rather how you’d spend your time in Heaven? Eternity is an awfully long time. I’ve been thinking back to some of the descriptions I was given of Heaven when I was a kid and also of what others have said about it as time has gone by. Continue reading
America is heading down a dangerous road. I’m not talking about Socialism or Anarchy (yeah, those are bad too). I’m referring to our free-fall into ignorance. Far too many Americans are rejecting obvious facts in favor of what they want to believe. They’ll reject a beneficial scientific discovery because they think it conflicts with their religious beliefs. They reject common sense precautions against Covid-19 because they’ve been deluded into thinking their rights are being violated. We reject vaccines because some goofball on youtube strings together a bunch of unrelated information. We are becoming a nation of people unwilling or unable to think outside the box. I find myself torn between wanting to help fight the tidal wave of stupidity or just giving up.
More and more, I’m seeing memes on social media from Christians about how “God is in control.” And the more out of control the world becomes, the more they insist otherwise. At some point, true believers are going to have to face the truth: No, God isn’t in control because He doesn’t exist. Or if He does exist, they need to fire Him and hire a more competent deity to govern their fate.
More and more Americans are becoming disconnected from reality. Does anyone recall the USA ever being in such a mess? Violent civil unrest, unwarranted attacks on innocent people, rampant conspiracy theories, looting and rioting and more. We’ve had civil unrest in the past, and not all of it bad. Women, blacks and gays all had to fight for equality in a nation dominated by old white men reluctant to give up their stranglehold on American society. They won, and that’s a good thing. We’re supposed to be a free nation. But… We might be free but we’re certainly not united.
What a mess America is in right now. Between Covid-19, the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and others, high unemployment and whatever Trump and the Democrats are fighting about this week it’s as if the whole country is upside down. One blog post obviously can’t cover it all. But there are a few things I’d like to address. We The People are getting kicked around pretty badly, and sadly a lot of it isn’t Us vs Them. It’s Us vs Us. But that is something we can fix.
The Bible Belt
I’m seeing some really hateful rhetoric spewing out of the various secular online communities, much of it directed at the Bible Belt. As an atheist and a resident of Mississippi, I expect better from my contemporaries.
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I never know why or when I’ll suddenly be “inspired” to write a blog post. It’s more for my own benefit that anything else – I’m not exactly an online celebrity. In this case I had posted a rather testy meme on Facebook because I was (and remain) so weary of all the inane “God memes” people are posting right now. This always gets worse in times of crisis. With covid-19 raging around the world, FB has become flooded with memes about how “God is in control” and “God is mighty” and so on and so forth. So I posted a larger version of the image on the left. Took all of about 10 minutes to create it with Paint.net. And what’s obvious is that all these pro-God memes are not statements of faith. They are instead an obvious attempt by frightened people to convince themselves that their god is there for them. And I remain convinced that He is not.
Kroger in Laurel, MS (where I shop)
So I visited Kroger and Walmart last Sunday morning. Tons of empty shelves and endless checkout lines. And why? The corona virus, pure and simple. I spoke with a couple of people at Kroger and they agreed that it was all about panic-buying. Good thing I have plenty toilet paper, right? I did want a loaf of bread, but there was none to be had. I grabbed a couple of cornbread muffins from the deli and left in disgust.
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Think 4 Yourself 