God Is A Failure

I just hope that God opens his eyes.

Pray that God will open whose eyes?? Kenneth Copeland’s??
He’s a famous, intensely popular, televangelist with a mega-church, and tens of thousands of followers and adherents. Are you implying that there are some people who preach the Bible, teach Christianity, and offer salvation, who are mistaken or lying??!  👿

We all know there is. Most of mainstream Christianity is nothing more than a bunch of well-seasoned snake oil salesmen, who trick poor needy people into financing their lifestyles. These hypocrites end up making it hard on others whose heart is truly desiring to help mankind. Thanks for stopping by.

Thank you for confirming what we all knew.  The next time some Good Christian Apologist demands to know why I don’t believe in God, I will mention your name, and present this argument.  If only there were a reliable way to tell the real from the fake, without having to rely on your fine-tuned intuition.

I am sure that Copeland did not mean it, the way it appears in the above image.  He was responding to non-believers’ arguments that his God clearly appears to be a loser, with the rather circular argument that God could not be a loser, unless He admits that He is a loser.  If He were real, He wouldn’t need the likes of Copeland, or anyone else, to defend, justify, or explain Him.

While Copeland managed to slip God’s name into this little quotation, it sounds more like a self-confidence building quote that a motivational speaker would use, to justify his fee.

Fee, fie, fo, fum.  I smell the blood of another couple of Liars For Christ.

There is no portion of the text in that image which is the truth – except your sadistic delight in believing and spreading it.

Unless of course you believe the Bible is truth. Then you have to decide one way or the other. You either believe in hell and fear it, or you take a gamble with your self-learned knowledge that you have obtained through books from people just like yourself and hope and pray to whomever you pray to, that you’re right. Quite a gamble. What if you’re wrong?

What if you’re wrong, and face Allah, and the Muslim Hell??!  It’s far worse than the Christian one.  😈
I do not believe that the Bible is truth.  It contains some good things, and some true things.  It also contains a disturbing amount of evil things, and false things, as well as many unproven claims.  I do not pray – to, or for anything.  I deal with reality as I experience it.

Humility goes a long way here…let’s see if there’s anyone who might be humble enough to admit that their beliefs are wrong.

It can be difficult – a strain – but I have, I do, and I would – only, not just because you claim they are. Besides humility, it takes honesty.  🙄

Have you read my article on blood clotting? It take overs (sic) 100 different processes to clot blood so the organism doesn’t bleed out. Kinda impossible for evolution to get all that right without millions of years of trial and error eh?

Nice non-sequitur!  Pay no attention to that claim behind the curtain.

What do you think evolution is?? – other than millions of years of trial and error?  And it didn’t start with a large, fully-developed creature like a deer, or a human, who would bleed out with the smallest nick.  It started with microscopic life-forms with no circulation.  They could not grow larger and more complex in the competition for survival, until genetic mutation solved each/all of those 100 processes, sequentially, before moving on.

CANCER!

Well, that title got your attention!

The wife is going to be on TV – YouTube, actually – opposite a world-famous star.
I’ll send you the link later if you want.
You won’t see her face, just her guts, if you have the guts to watch.

The local YouTube videos are liberally sprinkled with Ontario Health PSA’s.  Middle-aged and older women, some alone, some with husbands/partners, all smiling at the camera, with the printed tagline,
I’m here because we caught it early!  😀

IT was cervical cancer!  Twenty years ago, a pap-smear result had me driving the daughter 75 miles to a specialty-clinic in the London, Ontario University Hospital, for a little nip and tuck, and removal of a small, pre-cancerous – or just-cancerous, polyp.  She’s still here because they caught it early.

THEN THERE’S THE WIFE!
It all started innocently enough….
(How often have I used that line?)

After the wife fell down and banged her head, her doctor started a battery of tests to find out why.  The first thing she discovered was that the wife was mildly anemic.  The cause is often a minor internal bleed, so she ordered a colonoscopy and a gastric endoscopy.  This is the wife’s fourth colonoscopy in 12 years.  She made the G.I. guy promise to do the top end first.

He found and removed several polyps from her stomach, upper intestine, and lower intestine….  Then he found a big, nasty one right exactly where you don’t want to find one – at the narrow bottom of the duodenum, the hardest point in the body to get to, and work at.  The local doctor and hospital have about an 80/85% confidence level, so he referred her to a specialty-clinic at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.  Any of the four surgeons, and the hospital’s high-tech equipment, rate 90/95% confidence.

He sent along color pictures.  We thought that the March 6^th visit would be for removal, but this guy wanted to do some more research.  A needle biopsy had indicated no evidence of cancer, but the big-city sawbones felt sure that there were some cancer cells sprinkled through it, that were randomly missed.

Whether cancerous or not, this thing’s got to come out – ASAP!  Already it almost blocks the passage, and getting bigger.  Scheduled surgery in Kitchener would have been mid-September.  Especially if this thing goes cancerous, that would be far too late.  The Toronto-doc could schedule it for mid- April.

This polyp is so large, so nasty, and so inaccessible, that our surgeon had all three of his partners watching the view-screen, offering thoughts and opinions, while he worked.  The best choice for removal was endoscopically, rather than invasive abdominal surgery.  He was pretty sure that he could take it out, but there were potential problems.  It’s a big mushroom.  If he snips it off too high up the stem, it and/or the cancer might regrow.  If he cut too close to the bottom, he might perforate the thin duodenum wall, damaging the liver and pancreas, and necessitating the abdominal surgery to repair the mishap.

One of the reasons that his best scheduled surgery date was mid-April, was that on March 28, 29, and 30^th, the clinic and hospital were hosting a world-wide conference of the best G.I. surgeons, including a ninja-Japanese surgeon with a confidence rating of 99/101%.  If this guy is not number one in the world, he’s in the top five

They were watching for problem cases like the wife’s, so that he could show his talents.  If we agreed, she would be part of a video of his work, to train and improve other surgeons.  Two of the benefits were that the operation would be done three weeks even sooner, and it would be done by the world’s best.  Of course we agreed – all that, and for free, under Canada’s socialized medical system.

***

Stay tuned.  Murphy got a chance to read the first draft, and has added some plot twists in the next chapter.   😳

Flash Fiction #291

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

HAPPY  NEW YEAR!

With the fervent hope that that wish may be better realized than last year’s similar one.

2022 exits as it entered, with many of us still exiled and isolated in our homes.  The streets and shops are empty.  Merchants pray for trade, and only the likes of FedEx and Door-Dash delivery drivers, courting sickness and death, keep the economy limping along.

Things will improve.  Here’s a happy helping of confidence, and an optimistic quote from the Little Engine, who says, “I know we can!  I know we can!”

Let’s make it a great year, fellow Friday Fictioneers.

***

If you’d like to join the fun, go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site, and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100-word story.

’18 A To Z Challenge – W

I write ‘old,’ because I am old, but also because I read even older writings when I was young.  I love the new technology (what I can understand of it), but I miss the grace, style and solemnity of bygone days, and bygone manners, and bygone speech.  When/because I was younger, I never had the opportunity to call someone a

Whippersnapper

Now that I am old enough to do so, life and language have moved on, and I have missed my chance.  I might as well speak of button-hooks, or buggy-whips, or Marcel hair treatments.  People would regard me even more strangely than they already do.

‘Whippersnapper’ is a word which has been used since the 17th century. The word can be used in two different contexts. One, it refers to a person who is very lazy and has no ambitions. The other context is used to denote young people who live on the streets and are indulged in wrong practices. However, the usage and meaning of the word changed over time. Now, it is used for a person who is very confident, or for a child who keeps questioning.

Nowadays, society moves so fast that many of us don’t have, or take, the time to actually say or write things.  OMG!  For those who deserve this epithet, (and they are numerous, and greatly deserving) I will have to settle for a firmly applied “Asshole,” or a solid smack with an appropriate acronym (PITA = Pain In The Ass), or Emoji.

Flash Fiction #155

PHOTO PROMPT © Björn Rudberg

XANADU

Who would have believed that Shangri-La would be located in the Black Hills of South Dakota?? Certainly not him, before he began his research.  The friends he’d been foolish enough to tell, all laughed at him.

Year by year the threads all came together, directly over this little peak. This was his third summer expedition, and he’d finally found a trail.  He remembered all the clues that claimed it could not be found or reached.

Proceeding carefully but confidently, suddenly this thing waddled out…. Was it an animal, a robot, an alien??  Perhaps he wouldn’t reach Shangri-La after all.

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

A to Z Challenge – I

I spy with my little I – a whole bunch of stuff that starts with ‘I’. Aye, aye!

Illusion – Allusion – Elusion

Illusion
noun
something that deceives by producing a false or misleading impression of reality.
the state or condition of being deceived; misapprehension.
an instance of being deceived.

allusion
noun
a passing or casual reference; an incidental mention of something, either directly or by implication:

the act of alluding; the making of a casual or indirect reference to something:

elusion
noun
the act of eluding; evasion.

Idiot
noun
The old fart who thought he could just compose 26 interesting alphabetical posts.

I was under the illusion that I was a competent writer.  I made an allusion to my extensive vocabulary.  The elusion of literary greatness rankles and sobers me.

Speaking of sober….

Intoxicated
verb (used with object), intoxicated, intoxicating.
to affect temporarily with diminished physical and mental control by means of alcoholic liquor, a drug, or another substance, especially to excite or stupefy with liquor.

to make enthusiastic; elate strongly, as by intoxicants; exhilarate: 

The prospect of the success of this post intoxicated me.  I was enthusiastic, but reality stupidified stupefied me, and diminished my mental abilities. 

The drunken pick-up couple stagger out of the bar. He says, “I’m stiff.”  She says, “I’m tight.”…and they’re both lying.

This demonstration of my restricted talents has made me quite

Insecure
adjective
subject to fears, doubts, etc.; not self-confident or assured:
an insecure person.
not confident or certain; uneasy; anxious:

Insincere
adjective
not sincere; not honest in the expression of actual feeling; hypocritical.

I am not being insincere, when I say that I would like a bunch of visitors – and a pile of views….but I’ll settle for a few nice warm ‘likes.’

I thank you!    😀

 

Religious Addiction

A letter came to a pastor recently, from a middle-aged woman determined to take her own life. She has already made an attempt.  She suffers from extremely low self-esteem, depression and other afflictions.

She feels desperate, “cut off from God” and beyond divine forgiveness. Certain readers will already be saying to themselves that she needs to be “saved,” to be “born again,” and to join a church where they “preach the Gospel.”

However, this woman has already been through all that. A Theologian read her letter and felt it was quite obvious that she suffered from far too much literalistic fundamentalism already.  Like hundreds of similar others over the years, she is being tormented by the very religion she once turned to for comfort and “salvation.”

Briefly stated, she is suffering from a form of religion that is ‘bad religion.’ It’s growing and becoming very powerful in some quarters today.  It can look successful on the outside, even imparting a glazed but glowing countenance, but it can tear apart people’s souls.

This form of ‘addictive’ religiosity is not confined to circles dominated by TV evangelists or excessively zealous priests. It cuts across all Christian denominations and, in varying degrees, all other faiths.

Here are some of its major characteristics. It touts black and white answers to every problem – from hormone issues (sex), to when and how the universe was formed.  It encourages passive dependence on a host of authorities, from sacred texts, to faith leaders at every level.  It fosters simplistic, ‘magical’ thinking.  It diminishes one’s autonomy, self-reliance, confidence in one’s own inner voice and ability to grow either emotionally or intellectually.

It views all other faith stances as wrong – or even Satanic, leading to “Hell.”  Such a system whines a lot about what “miserable sinners” we all are and yet never asks itself why it leaves such incredible guilt, anxiety and loss of self-esteem in its wake.

Yes, it can produce an overinflated ‘high’ at being on the “winning side,” as “God’s elect,” but at a terrible price. This is referred to as loss of authenticity and of one’s inner convictions.  The God being served is too often a narrow, small, vengeful, tribal deity, who is nonetheless supposedly loving.

The Churchman reflected on this phenomenon as he worked on answering the suicide note. Suddenly, with a genuine synchronicity, his mail arrived with a copy of an article from Pastoral Psychology, a magazine dedicated to learned articles on various aspects of soul-care – mainly for clergy, psychotherapists and other counsellors.

It was titled “Religious Addiction, The Subtle Destruction Of The Soul.” It was written by Patricia Anne Venderheyden, a psychotherapist in private practice in London, Ontario.  Her Master’s thesis is from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, and was focused on this same issue: religious addiction.

As she told him in an interview, this isn’t a subject that has received much attention in the past. It certainly deserves it today!  She had pondered for many years, beginning with her own experiences of certain faith groups, why it is that so many in every religion gravitate to authoritarian cliques with such alacrity and yet, in the end, with such disastrous results.

She wrote: “I observed how people’s inner authority was compromised in order to fit in with a system of belief whose standards were impeccable – and unattainable. I saw people accepted into groups only if they ‘jumped through the right hoops’, dotted their i’s and watched their p’s and q’s.” The ‘addicts’ had a show of freedom, yet their proclamations seemed ‘hollow and empty.’

She saw many such persons blindly accepting the words and advice of religious elders. All critical awareness and thinking for themselves had long since been suppressed.  “The addicts wanted to be told that he or she was absolutely right, and that any form of questioning is evil.” she said.

Certainly, authorities can help someone at first, but if they are compulsively used ‘as a way of avoiding one’s own reality,’ they ruin one’s hopes of ever becoming mature in either mind or spirit. The addicts she describes are ‘religious junkies,’ obsessed with mood alteration and a quick fix to face life.

There’s no need to assign blame. Religious leaders can nurture an addictive faith unwittingly by never stopping to ask questions of the style and content of their ministry, such as: To whom does it cater, and why?  With what results?

Believers who are really avoiding the shame and pain within by refusing to tackle it, and by ‘leaving it all to God,’ need to stop and realize that the rigidity and exclusivity of addictive religion can one day leave you empty, out of touch with your real self and, hence, engulfed by fear and despair.   😦

 

Yenta

I’ve Got A Secret!

I’ve got a secret, and I’m not gonna tell you.  Nyah, nyah.

I am not a gossip.
I do not betray a confidence.
I do not gossip.
I hate gossips!
I think they suffer from a character defect.
I feel they lack self-control, and moral and ethical standards.
I am not a gossip!

I recently discovered why I am not a gossip.  In my long, loner, loser life, no-one has felt me important enough to entrust me with information that I could pass on, or a confidence that I could betray.  It’s easy to not be a sinner, when you’ve never been tempted.  That changed recently.  Somebody told me something.
SOMEBODY!  TOLD!  ME!  SOMETHING!
HOLY SHIT!!

I always thought that cartoon characters with steam pouring from their ears were just a joke.  I’ve got lots of empty space inside my head to absorb an explosion.  Damn, I almost lost my eardrums.  I found one of my eyebrows under a footstool.  It’s a good thing I was sitting down.  I had an attack of the vapors. Everything got fuzzy, and swirled around.  I needed a mint julep to calm my nerves.

‘I need to set up a Twitter account!  I’ll have to open a Facebook page!  Is the computer turned on?  Hand me the cell phone!  Will the extension ladder reach the roof?  I have to get up there and shout this out!’

Easy boy!  Just stick your head in a bucket of ice cubes and water.

About a year ago, I thought I did a favor for a friend.  She didn’t provide all the necessary relevant information, and I recently found that, instead of being of assistance, I’d just been spinning my wheels.  When she fully briefed me, I was able to make an informed choice of a different option.  It’s still early days yet, but this time I think it’s going to take.

To ensure the greatest likelihood of success for another small favor, she filled me in with some background information.  It was like watching the movie Inception.  REALITY CHANGED.  Nothing was what it had seemed.

The information wasn’t down and dirty, or evil and perverted.  In fact, quite the opposite!  This news was happy, joyous, fulfilling, uplifting – just social and legal stuff that needed to be dealt with before the general public is allowed to know about it.

This is “Christ Is Risen” news.  I should be riding from village to village on a donkey, proclaiming the glorious story.  You should know me from afar by the golden radiant glow of the wondrous tale within me – and I can’t say a word.

The wife and son and daughter know the lady, and like her.  They’ve worried for a while because she seemed to be stressed, but now feel better because things seem to be going smoother.  They would approve of the information.  They would be ecstatic to know the full truth, but I cannot say a thing.  Don’t ask me.

Two people can keep a secret – if one of them is dead.  While I am sometimes tempted, I really don’t want to have to shoot a couple of them.  I’m just going to sit here with a knowing smile on my face, and bask in the warm glow of the trust I’ve been given.  In the fullness of time, this situation will resolve itself, and I will no longer be the only one who is permitted to be thrilled for my our friend.

In the meantime….I do not have a character defect.  I do possess self-control, as well as moral and ethical standards.  I am not a gossip!  I am happy that my friend will be happy, and she will be happy if I keep my mouth shut.  If only others could.

 #460

Flash Fiction #13

And He Lightly Touched Down

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His parents had worked their butts off to pay for four years of British boarding school.

He had worked his butt off for four years to achieve impressive grades.  He had studied hard, and absorbed everything he could to prepare himself for his career.

He had several employment irons in the fire back in California, and a couple of confirmed interviews.  If all went well, he would soon be earning enough to repay his parents.

Here he was, winging his way home, and on to fame and fortune.  If only he were as confident as he told himself he was.

 

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a 100 word story.

 

This can be considered Chapter 2, following my May 29 Flash Fiction #7 post, Stepping Up, Stepping Down.