What is The Rapture?

Synonyms for Rapture - ecstasy, delight, joy, bliss, Seventh Heaven, Cloud Nine.

None of the above comes close to what I'm interested in discussing. For me, The Rapture is about people disappearing off the streets in the blink of an eye. Not just one person, but dozens, hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of millions. Before you know it, every Evangelical Baptist on the planet Earth is gone. Or are they?

Maybe, it will be Catholics, or Quakers, Presbyterians, Episcopalians (oops, no, not them, they accepted gays into the clergy). Perhaps Jews can go along for the ride, take Muslims too.

To me the concept of The Rapture seems a bit too science fiction. It's as if aliens will invade with Star Trek hand weapons, or laser guns. Alternatively, some mythical creatures from the lost annals of history will fly silently overhead, emitting a thin stream of superheated gas that annihilates living atoms on contact, but only human atoms of course.

If I think about it long enough, casting aside my character flaws, which pile up around me to about shoulder height, I know I would rather skip it. I mean watching might be a thrill, in a voyeuristic kind of way, but otherwise forget about it.

Listen, I've lived many years as a kid and as an adult. If I'm going to be whisked away in the blink of a divine eye, what was the purpose of those years I lived, and why was I not allowed to live the rest of my time first? Hell, I'm not done. I know I'm going to screw up anyway, so why not let me finish? I might get lucky near the end and do something really cool that erases my jagged past.

Oh, yeah, The Rapture equals End of Time. Please, end of human time is not even close to the end of time. In addition, we do not need God to end it for us, we're doing fine on our own, thank you very much!

Oh, that's right, I forgot, there is no climate change. Why it snowed in the Deep South this past winter. Moreover, Canada just went through its warmest winter in recorded history, hmmm.

So what if come 12/21/2012 at twelve noon exactly, a massive rock drops from space and cracks open the surface of the Earth? Will that be The Rapture? Or The End of Time? Damn sure will hurt like hell.

Do try to keep in mind that The Rapture, i.e. The Ecstasy, The Delight, The Bliss is meant to feel good, extreme pleasure, spiritually orgasmic even. Why else chose a name such as The Rapture? It's not even close to The Eternal Lullaby. We'll be dancing on clouds with harps and wings to the tune of Tiptoe through the Angelic Tulips.

Oh, and yup, The Rapture will be a bad event for those of us Left Behind. There will be nothing blissful about it, rarely a shudder of ecstasy for them. They'll go on living just as they always have, except there will be no extremist Right Wing Evangelical Christians dictating how you can and cannot live your life.

Oh, wait a minute.

All of them along with their media dictators, authors, song writers, human rights hating, corporate loving, discriminating, screaming illiterates, and too the hidden-in-the-wilderness militiamen will be gone forever.

Why, those of us Left Behind will be stuck with nothing but thinking caring intellectuals, humanists, equal rights supporters, earth loving environmentalists, and promoters of justice and peace over profits.

Well, my God, seems I got distracted, or did I? After all, what exactly is The Rapture?

According to what I've heard and read, the Chosen are plucked off the Earth and given their well deserved Eternal Reward.

Okay, I get that, but if there are tens of millions, or hundreds of millions, where will all of those people live, or stay? Do they remain physical, or will their bodies be converted to ashes? Then what? We who get Left Behind sweep up the remains? Okay, will make good fertilizer I suppose.

Moreover, what happens to whatever part of the "SAVED" that is whisked off or sucked into heaven? Is it non-corporeal? Does he or she transform into a ghost-like creature floating helplessly through space? Is deep space heaven? Will feathered wings help?

Maybe the galaxy's black hole center is Hell. Cool, or not.

Um, distracted again, I see. I suppose I don't get it, so that means I'm destined to be Left Behind. Well thank God!

That must also mean I am not a right wing Evangelical Christian who believes he has the right-- no, the obligation to dictate how others must live, and die. As if any Christian has personally spoken to God for such instruction.

A burning bush does not a God make.

You see, I do not believe any human can receive real power over others without it corrupting him. In addition, if God really did create humanity, for whatever entertaining reason, then God knew that too. Therefore, God would not ever, if it were possible, speak to any human, period. Why give a lowly human that kind of power? I mean really, just look at Papal history.

Damn, why do I get into these dead end debates?

Let me say this and I will quit what I should never have begun. If there really will be a Rapture and only the chosen few -- such as those lovely Evangelicals who think healthcare is a privilege, that women have no right to control their own destinies, that gay men and women are unequal the way those same people once thought black Americans were, that selected men can speak for all of humanity ordering its future, that poverty is right for anyone but them -- I truly want to be Left Behind.

No, I demand to be Left Behind. Life on Earth without radical religion would be heaven on Earth, a thousand years of peace finally. Every war for the last four thousand years was fought for or because of God, or religion.

Good grief, let The Rapture begin, please, if there is a God, I beg you.

Better than Term Limits or Campaign Finance Laws

Here is a method to fix what is wrong with federal elections in America without term limits or campaign finance laws.

Using computer generated randomization, select a state to elect the United States Senators and Congressional Representatives from a different state. Let me cite an example.

The computer program runs 45 days before the November election. Say the outcome selects Vermont voters to vote for the candidates running for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives from the state of South Carolina. The state of New York votes for the candidates running in Arizona, etc., until all fifty states are matched up. The program runs each federal election cycle.

Exactly 30 days before the election, a nationwide announcement alerts citizens of, say Vermont, that the state's U.S. Senators and Congressional Representatives they will be voting for is South Carolina.

Then, all of the candidates are required to go to the state that will choose who wins the election after balloting on Election Day. The candidates must run statewide in-person debates for thirty days concerning only the topics important to pressing issues of the time leaving out issues such as flag burning, gay rights, and any other "hot button" topic.

As the debates begin, federal law prohibits political advertising nationwide on TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, and the internet. There will be no talking heads commentary, or talk show discussion of candidates, their personal lives, families, etc., and issues.

Violators will be fined severely and if they violate the law twice, receive a minimum sentence of no less than five years in prison without parole.

This may seem lopsided at the outset, but I believe the result will be fair. Each state will go through the candidate selection process as is done now, six months or one year before the computer selection process picks which state will vote for the chosen candidates.

With this method, the extreme left or right will not be able to pollute the process at the "last minute." Democrats, Republicans, and Independents will vote in primaries as is done now and select whom they want to send to the debates.

The process should gradually weed out extremism on both sides and focus the election on what is important not on who gains or maintains power.

The screaming anger that pollutes the process now to the point of total dysfunction ends. The manipulation and influence by corporate donors and K Street lobbyists, Special Interest Organizations, and PACs who ignite the screaming anger ends, or is severely muted during the thirty days leading up to Election Day. Meaning they can talk amongst themselves while in the seclusion of their offices or homes, but not broadcast any of what is said.

When time comes to elect a president, the process remains as it is now until ninety days before Election Day. At that time, the rules in paragraphs 6 and 7 above apply.

There it is, simple as pie.
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Copyright March 11, 2010 all rights reserved.
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Christian Right's "Cold" Civil War

In spite of what the American conservative right desires we believe, their rhetoric has become clear. The truth of their deception is vastly different from their professed goals.

Led by an obese drug abuser, and Holy men who condemn in others the behavior they practice, corporation CEOs, U.S. senators and congresspersons who channel their political lust for power and personal gain, threaten national security, and sound economic recovery.

How long before they succeed depends on the number of Americans who listen and believe while these abhorrent men and women cleverly work their hidden agenda, a silent civil war, and a true regional division of the Union.

I believe this plan began with the introduction of Rush Limbaugh and the rampaging lies of Newt Gingrich, building to a mouth foaming crescendo when good Americans, those "Got Damned Yankees" had the audacity to elect a black man as president.

As proof think about this: never before in this nation's history has so many "Leaders" social, religious, political, and business, expended so much time and resources condemning and striving to destroy a president during his first year in office. This president broke no laws, morally, ethically, or legally. This president "inherited" the worst economic crisis in more than 70 years, a nation divided over the invasion of Iraq, a housing and employment disaster, runaway healthcare costs, and never once lost his sense of direction or expressed anger at those fighting bitterly to tear him down.

Moreover, the men and women "leaders" predominantly from the "Deep South," the very deep dank swamp mentality south, will not stop until they either succeed or are driven from office. They do not care how many American lives are destroyed or how many Americans die. They feed on the hidden racism that festers in the under-educated, the fear-filled tea-partiers, and the gullible led by rabidly religious Old Testament Christian ministers, pastors, and priests.

The latter solution, driving these bitterly hate-filled conservatives from office, will likely never happen. Therefore, the verbal civil war is shoved along like the proverbial boulder an ancient god rolled uphill. If they and their agenda are not stopped, they may end the American dream once and for all. Of course, there is the possibility that the gravity of commonsense will respond and roll down hill crushing them all.

New GOP Plan to Fight Terrorism

BREAKING NEWS!

A Southern Republican U.S. Senator has devised a plan to make certain no other Underwear Bomber ever again boards a commercial airliner traveling to or within the United States of America.

His original bill stated that no person male or female, young or old, be allowed to board any plane destined for any United States airport while wearing any underwear. He considered this an idea of extreme brilliance. No underwear, no place to hide a bomb.

However, his Christian Right Tea Bagger constituents immediately rejected his plan. Their leaders proclaimed that not wearing underwear would, well, undermine the support they needed to hold aloft the fifty or more pounds of jelly-like body fat they earned by just being God-fearing Americans who hated the poor and labor unions.

Furthermore, they screamed in his face, "Jesus in His Sermon on the Etiquette stated that by not wearing underwear one would be condemned in the eyes of God Himself to eternal damnation and forced to shovel feces for Satan in the Pits of Hell."

Once confronted by this viral opposition, the noble southern U.S. Senator declared that a better and more acceptable solution would be that all airline passengers be required to don glitter string thongs before boarding.

Dressing rooms would be set aside for those who could not afford this luxury. There they could don the thong provided for them by the TSA, which they would be required to turn in at their destination.

The Chinese Corporations, backed by Corporate America's finest, manufacturers of most of the world's heavily cadmium laced glitter thongs, praised and exalted the senator's bill.

Immediately, the Chinese pumped millions of Yen into the senator's reelection war chest through dummy corporations they'd previously established while struggling to block Google from spreading the lies of Freedom of Speech.

The Southern U.S. Senator's homeboy corporate sponsors, well aware that a string thong could not, would not hold back their seventy plus pounds of jiggle -- per person -- were stymied and threw their weight, err support, behind their Guru, the senior Walton of Walmart, demanding that the great Walton family do something, anything to fix their dilemma.

Seeing the glitter of new opportunity, the board of directors dropped the prices on all styles of underwear, except, of course, glitter thongs, which they purchased as quickly as the cadmium poisoned Chinese nine-dollars-a-day workers mass produced them.

Next, thought the Southern U.S. Senator, the White House. Oh, Glory Be to God!

How has so much hatred replaced what was good about Christianity?

How has so much hatred replaced what was good about Christianity? When and why did so many Christians not see the division in the path and turn to follow the evil crafted by abusers?

Why do these followers now shout praises for division, isolation, destruction, and pain? Is it possible to restore faith to Christianity without bleeding faith itself? I fear it is not possible.

A letter to the editor of our local newspaper, The Sun News, illustrated what I mean somewhat more succinctly if not totally.

The letter was written in response to local columnist Isaac Bailey's article criticizing a resolution proposed in the U.S. Congress by Congressman Henry Brown. Brown's resolution #951 declared that the U.S. Congress should recognize the importance of Christmas.

To me this resolution implies that Congress, and therefore the federal government, should get directly involved in religion. Since the U.S. Constitution defines the importance of the separation of church and state, it seemed odd that Brown would propose it. Isaac Bailey was correct.

Although, perhaps Mr. Brown thought federal and state governments should begin to collect taxes for religious organizations. Many religions dabble in government anyway. So why not? We all need the money.

However, in Mr. Brandmahl's letter, he screams at us readers. Ranting and raving about "Christian haters launching a broadside to abolish the Christian religion." What?

This in response to Mr. Bailey's column. It's difficult to imagine.

Brandmahl then proceeds to spew tirades about infidels, and, well, I won't go on with it. It's the same old same old. I'm certain the entire letter is available at the paper's website if you want the full experience.

Of course, one might wonder why a newspaper publishes religious letters like this on nearly a daily basis. On the other hand, perhaps not if you consider the source. Once, in the not too distant past, newspapers had the audacity to publish news and letters concerning such. What were they thinking?

To me, Mr. Brandmahl sounds frightened that if enough people disavow Christianity, it will suddenly disappear in a cloud of smoke along with his afterlife sanctuary Heaven. To further his cause, he uses the typical anger and yes, hatred that Christianity originally meant to abolish.

Therefore, I ask you this, Mr. Brandmahl. Hasn't enough blood, been shed throughout 2000 years of Christian history? Enough innocents -- many of them Christians -- killed for their ignorance or unwillingness to follow blindly the commands of a few mortal men seeking power and wealth when to do so violates the sanctuary of personal beliefs and faith? I dare say that it seems not.

In reality, Christianity has slid into the trap set by certain church leaders whose reasoning is based on a hunger for power, fame, and wealth, just as in the past. All those are traits that Christianity originally meant to abolish.

There is nothing attractive in this. In addition, if an organization or religion cannot attract followers without using fear and anger, which I realize worked for Christianity for much of these last 2000 years, it will only turn others away.

However, Mr. Brandmahl and others like him vilify faith with their vitriolic diatribes and in doing so prove the point that those who believe Christianity is wrong try to make.

Jesus said, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." Didn't he, Mr. Brandmahl? Maybe it's time for you and others who think attack attack is the only way to save your religion should start with the man in the mirror. However, you will not, will you?

Here is a closing thought.

Faith is not fear. Faith is not hatred. Faith is not punishment nor is it condemnation. Faith is acceptance, peace, and love. And of course, faith is not religion.

True Christians should demand inclusion of all, not exclusion of any. Christianity is about acceptance, peace, and love.

Anything less is not Christian but is heretical rubbish.

Therefore, Mr. Brandmahl and others like you, keep your rage and hatred for yourself. As long as you and they speak and write letters such as yours, you will continue to drive the faithful away, which makes your toils self-fulfilling. Doesn't it? It's a shame really.

Mark Sanford's Christian Healthcare Plan (sic)

Mark Sanford, while on the Appalachian Trail of his lover's, oops, Soul Mate's inner thigh, hiking onward to reach the deep dark cavern of his deception, has decided to be a good Christian Governor and cut funding for healthcare.

This, I'm certain he knows, will bring on much pain and suffering and some early deaths too, but he'll tell you that Christians, at least impoverished or out-of-work Christians, live to suffer and die.

It helps to reduce the surplus population of, well, the poor, underpaid and unemployed. They cannot contribute to his legal bailout fund or his compatriots' campaigns anyway.

Standing in the shadows cast by Sanford's plunging efforts; the paper silhouette that is Jim DeMint applauds his efforts. DeMint knows his corporate sponsors will boost deposits into his political coffers.

And then there's Mr. Lindsey Graham, always grinning, always delighted to side with those men and corporate leaders who promote the least Christian agenda.

Ah, well, if Christianity is doomed ,that which dooms it is something far more potent - corporate American greed and its knee-jerk followers too ignorant to understand that Medicare is a government run healthcare system.

It must be payback time for South Carolinians, or those who cannot afford healthcare. Many of whom supported Sanford when he was caught with his proverbial drawers around his ankles crying like the little boy caught with his hand wrapped tightly around the shaft of deceit.

Although I am not a believer in hell, just for you, Mark, I hope it exists, because I am sure there is a shovel with your name engraved on the handle, leaning against a particularly hot and rancid wall of smoldering ashes.

The GOP (Republican) healthcare plan: Human Sacrifice?

Let’s face it, if the Republican Party has its way the following people will be in a position of either paying for their own health care out-of-pocket, filing bankruptcy, or dying.

The uninsured, those with preexisting conditions, the disabled, the elderly, some veterans, the under-insured, those with a BMI higher that normal, the obese, newly arrived immigrants, undocumented immigrants.

Excluding these people is the modern equivalent of human sacrifice.
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