Good Grief Friday

It's Good Friday, the day on which the world's Christians somberly reflect on the torture and slow, painful execution of Jesus Christ... so let's see how the man the Evangelicals love has commemorated this most solemn day of the liturgical calendar:

HAPPY GOOD FRIDAY TO ALL!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 10, 2020

Christ wept... the man is an idiot. I can picture him standing at the foot of Golgotha, looking up at the suffering Nazarene and telling him, "You think you've got it bad, the Fake News Media is being mean to me!" Holy Week started off with Facepalm Sunday and it hasn't gotten any better.

Among the lunatic fringe (sorry to be mentioning them in back-to-back posts, but not sorry, I love this stuff), it's a day of full-blown idolatry, according to their stupid number-letter substitution 'code', 4/10/20 corresponds to DJT:

pic.twitter.com/acKGMzFVtk

— Duran DeLorean⭐⭐⭐ (@DuranDeLorean) April 10, 2020

Who needs that peacenik Jesus guy when you can swap him out for the God-Emperor Trump? The nutters had been talking about Ten Days of Darkness, which many of them had interpreted as an internet blackout that would have ended today with the announcement that Hillary Clinton is in Gitmo. Some of them, Rapture Preacher style, revised this to start today, the Dear Leader's Alphanumeric Code Day. Poor things, they are suffering from a bad case of Q Waitus Interruptus.

It's been a weird day, and I'm just reading about these nutbags. I'd spend the afternoon in solemn contemplation of the Passion of the MAGAts, but my time is better spent taking a nap before a big family conference call/happy hour this evening. I'd bust out the bottle of Tullamore Dew, but I have to be at work at midnight.

Rupture, Not Rapture

Via Tengrain, we have the tale of Alex Jones calling out Glenn Beck for insufficiently supporting deadbeat rancher Cliven Bundy. Jones believes that Beck is working for the Kenyan Usurper, setting up the right-wing loons up for the jackbooted thuggery of the latte-sippin' lefties:


“They’re positioning him as a Judas goat to lead the liberty movement. It all just clicked. He is actually Benedict Arnold, he actually works for Obama. And I’m sorry I have to say that. He really does!”


Poor Beck, he steals Alex Jones' schtick, then backpedals in one instance, and now he's Benedict Arnold. On his end, perhaps because he sees the coming backlash and his getting drummed out of the loonbertarian fringe, Beck is seeking the refuge of religious whackaloonery... because religion is the last good refuge for an utter scoundrel. Addressing the commencement of Liberty University's graduating class, he's gone full-on "Rapture Ready" fundagelical millennialist, claiming that God is coming back "to settle scores".






One could chalk up Glenn's "Road to Dumbasscus" moment as an example of Jerusalem syndrome, but I have a more cynical view. I suspect that Beck sees the coming Rupture among the far-righties, so he's going to switch gears and talk about the Rapture to reinvent himself as a religious figure, having failed as a political pundit. Unluckily for him, Glenn is a couple of horsemen short of an apocalypse.

Cross-posted at Rumproast.

Hoping for a Hell... for YOU

It's amazing how, even a month after Roy had an epic post about "The Citadel", leading to an epic comment thread, the topic still fascinates. Of course, coverage on Fox Nation of "The Citadel" and Glenn Becky-becky-becky-becky-stan-stan has put this project back on the cognitive map that is "teh t00bz". Perhaps my favorite bit out of the "Citadel" blog was this excerpt from a September post:


The post below discusses the very real liklihood of refugee children who will come to our gates.

Of course we will give as many sanctuary as possible.

What of their adults? Perhaps Liberals who did not prepare and only in the Hell of civil war truly understand that their values are stupid? Do we accept their children and tell the parents to walk back toward Hell? I have no intention of sharing my bread with a stupid Liberal who is dying because of his/her stupidity. But his kid may be a different story.


This is nothing more than a "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" fantasty of refugees making their way across the ruined landscape from Berkeley to friggin' Idaho, the foolish adult liberals lamenting their failure to stock up on an emergency kombucha supply, only to be told by the lordly right-wing Masters of the Citadel to go to hell... more in sorrow than in anger, of course.

Most of these "Prepper" SHTF yearnings are like the fundieloons' Rapture fantasies- the appeal to the lizard brainers is the idea that YOU will suffer. You are the one in the Lake of Fire for Eternity, you are the starving refugee staring down the barrel of an AR-15 while the "prepper" sits like a soft, pinkish "Smaug" on his mountain of Spam cans and tells you to leave or he'll shoot. It's the worst sort of fantasy- they desire for the whole world to go to pieces so they can lord it over those they perceive as "enemies". It's a juvenile fantasy, akin to a junior high schooler's "yeah, she'll regret not going out with me because I'll be rich and famous someday".

I don't want the world to come crashing down around me, no matter how well I "prepare" for such a calamity. Those who do are tragically paranoid and delusional, and in one case, the paranoid delusion actually brought a "Hell on Earth" scenario to a couple of dozen families.

UPDATE: I took a walk in the snow through my beautiful work-site and had a sobering thought... for some of the survivalists, it's not the idea of sitting Smauglike on their mountain of Spam cans that appeals, it's the very idea of shooting a black person, a brown person, or a liberal that appeals to them. Scratch below the surface of even the polite ones and the violent urges appear- Liberal Hunting Permit, anyone?

Rest in Tranquility, Moon Man

It was with considerable sadness that I read of the the death of Neil Armstrong, the first human to set foot on extraterrestrial soil (sorry, Cyrano). The Apollo Program is perhaps the pinnacle of human achievement- a voyage to a heavenly body with the safe return of the travelers. Neil was the first- the combination of brilliance and bravery that led him to volunteer for this mission is positively mind-boggling. The trust that he placed in the physicists and engineers that made the program possible is a testament to his character. Just watching the film, and hearing Neil Armstrong's famous prounouncement, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" gives me goosebumps:





Fittingly, I took a good, long look at a beautiful waxing moon tonight (since much of my work schedule is nocturnal, I devote a lot of my blog to the "altar of the lupine lords") and thought, "There are human footprints up there, what a marvel!" The fact that humans were able to accomplish such a feat fills me with pride, even though the society that put the Apollo 11 "Eagle" Lunar Lander on the moon was far from perfect, as Gil Scott Heron acidly observed in one of his best pieces:





Of course, Neil Armstrong had nothing to do with the societal pathologies of the day. It's hard to wrap one's head around this in this cynical age, but Neil was an unalloyed hero- a self-effacing individual who had accomplished an unprecedented feat, a mere human who had strode like a titan across the face of the moon.

Then I came back down to earth... forty-three years after the Apollo 11 landing, our society has become debased. Theocratic thugs are trying to impose their Bronze Age superstition on the nation that was capable of the Apollo Project and Rapture Ready rubes are so fearful of the real universe that they hope and pray for its destruction (with the accompanying sideshow of folks like you and me being subject to eternal torment). An entire political party platform is based on the premise that government, the very government that successfully put Neil Armstrong on the moon, should be shrunk to a size where it could be drowned in a bathtub or inserted into a vagina. Neil, we've failed you. We've failed to follow in your footsteps, both mundane and lunar. We've failed ourselves, and, so far, our progeny. Neil, you will be missed, at a time when we need your example of fearlessness and brilliance more than ever.

Wow, that sure took a depressing turn... time for a little soothing balm. I believe that zrm would concur with me that some Mekons are in order:





Goodnight, Neil, sorry we're not following in your footsteps.

We Almost There!

So, the Rapture didn't occur in May... there must have been an error in the math or something. Well, undaunted by his total FAIL!!!, addlepated lunatic Harold Camping has decided that the world will probably end today. Protip- don't make grandiose end-of-the-world predictions when the stink of failure still clings to you so strongly. I took this photo a few months ago, when I didn't know what the hell the sign on the minivan referred to:





My favorite feature of the sign is the admonition not to buy cars from a particular dealer, right under the "rapture" sign. First of all, if you really think you're going to be taken bodily from this earth in a few weeks, why even bother with such worldly concerns? Even better, though, is the person's ability to smell out a small lie while living a huge, huge lie. Yeah, you realize that the car dealer lied to you when he told you the transmission would be sound for another 15,000 miles, but you believe that the fundamentalist kook who asked you to squander your life savings is on the level.

You just can't make this shit up.

UPDATE: Shoulda thought of this before... I guess the term for a failed Rapture is "apocaletdown"... "apocalapse" would also be suitable.

That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

Last night, while driving home, I heard a radio interview with a member of Camping's rapture believers. The kid was not willing to entertain the possibility that he would be around after this evening. The host asked him if he would be willing to continue the conversation on Monday, and the kid (I think he was in his early 20s, and I want him to GET OFFA MAH LAWN!!!!) insisted that he would not be present.

I can't think of a more nihilistic belief, unless it's the whole martyrdom for 72 virgins crap- the whole notion that someone would willingly trade the reality of existence for the prospect of an otherworldly reward is pitiable.

This Rapture business does real damage to people- financially, emotionally, socially, mentally (redundantly?). As the Pope of Mope himself would put it, the joke isn't funny anymore:





Added bonus, new commentor Nicholas advised, "so that you will not be misled today, study the Bible today." Well, Nicholas, so you will not be misled today, read The Poetic Edda. Deal?

On an unrelated note, I stopped by the local library today for their "Books for 50 cents per pound" sale and bought Phillip Pullman's books to celebrate the day. I know that a lot of fundies were upset about the books, but I fear that they'll be a little heavy handed. To my mind, the children's book series that best exemplifies the folly of disengagement from the world is Lloyd Alexander's "Chronicals of Prydain". If you haven't read them READ THEM NOW!!!! or you'll be in danger of bannings and cannings. The end of the series (WARNING, MAJOR SPOILERS!!!!!!), which has the protagonist trading a kingdom of joy for a kingdom of sorrow, seems as explicit a rejection of a hoped-for heavenly reward in favor of earthly engagement as any in literature.

That Whole Rapture Thing

The whole "Rapture" kerfuffle really has me pissed at the American media. Why the hell is this loon getting any coverage at all? Hell, I'm even a little pissed at myself for writing about this. The world is not going to end tomorrow. It's not even going to be the beginning of the end. Why do the Rapture obsessives even call themselves Christians? Wouldn't they be happier following Asatru, which has a more "metal" eschatological fantasy? And while we're at it, can we can the bullshit about "people of faith" being humble? What the hell is more egotistical than believing that you will be the centerpiece of Universe Shaking Events? Really, the "end of days" isn't coming in your lifetime, you're just a bunch of atoms inhabiting a galactic exurb, the cosmological equivalent of East Podunk. Sheesh.

As can be surmised, I don't believe in "The Rapture", it's just not a tenet of my faith, The Church of Ledernacken. Oddly enough, a search of my blog reveals that this is my first post to mention Ledernacken. I thought one of my earlier posts included a Ledernacken video... well, there's nothing to do but to rectify this error:





And who could possibly forget the gentle, melodic strains of Amok?





Ha sha ka! Ha sha ka! Go and sin some more!

Don't Strain Your Brain*

Recently, two major news organizations (so called) have covered "End of Days" lunatics in a sympathetic light, and interviewed a fundamentalist nutbag about the deaths of birds and fish in Arkansas. Why the hell are "mainstream" media outlets giving time to these lunatics and their eschatalogical fantasies?

The idea that one is going to be witness to the End of All Things has to be one of the most narcissistic notions that one can entertain. Honestly, people, get over yourselves- you are merely, as Douglas Adams put it, simple, ape-descended life forms inhabiting an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet orbiting at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles a small unregarded yellow sun in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy. No Rapture, no Ragnarök (though I won't rule out a Gigantomachy). Even if the human species nuked itself into oblivion, life on earth would almost certainly endure. Belief in an imminent end is pernicious because it absolves believers of responsibility for conserving resources or caring for future generations (the "torture porn" aspects of belief in a Rapture, with the majority of humanity suffering lovingly-described tortures, is merely the poisoned cherry on top of the rancid sundae). The only benefit of the Rapture fantasy is that it can provide occasional manifestations of comic brilliance, like this bit from Oregon's big gay emperor, Pupienus Maximus:

I sent the group an email promising a $1000 donation now if they agree that on May 22 the world has not ended they will pay me $100,000.


*Not so veiled Rapture reference

Uh... Mister Huckabee

I was made aware of the following interview only recently, but it raises one question- if Mike Huckabee unquestioningly gives credence to a man who believes that the end of the world is nigh, why the hell would he bother running for president? Personally, I want a president who actually believes that a worldly future is not only possible, but desirable.





I've always found the very idea of "The Rapture" to be the most narcissistic, nihilistic fantasy I've ever encountered. What kind of hubris leads someone to believe that he or she will be at the center of universe-shaking events? Of course, this arrogance is only made more odious by the belief that non-faithful will be consigned to a hellish fate. Why the hell would I ever consider voting for a narcissistic nihilist who believes in no future?

I used to work with a fundie-type who would always carry on about the upcoming Rapture. One day, I had the following conversation with him in front of a bunch of other coworkers:

"Do you really believe that the Rapture is imminent?"
"Oh, yes, it could happen any day now."
"Okay, if it is imminent, could you give me $500?"
"What? Why would I give you $500?"
"If the Rapture is imminent, and you and your family will be saved, you won't need it."
"Uh, eh, er, em..."
"So you don't really believe it, do you?"
"Uh, eh, er, em..."

He never brought the subject up again.