Easter Special: Getting the Easter story straight
Categories
Category: Religion
The best look at the 9/12 Tea Party I’ve found.
Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.
Honest. This isn’t a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.
Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”
A while back I started making images of items people choose to hang on their rearview mirrors. Having no use for religion, I am, nonetheless, oddly drawn to making images of religious things.
I have a few more rearview pet images.
Trying to wrap your mind around how vast the universe is? Take a look at the video below.
So God created all of this just for us?
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is called a “pencil beam” survey because the observations encompass a narrow, yet “deep” piece of sky. Astronomers compare the Ultra Deep Field view to looking through an eight-foot-long soda straw.
Flying sucks. No way around it. Just make the best of it.
I had to make a brief trip to Vancouver where I was stuck in meetings most of the time and never really got to see anything. I hear it’s beautiful but I have no way of knowing, other than the glimpse I got from the plane as it landed.
The only real highlight of the trip was off-the-hook sushi. Rather than tag along with people talking work the last night, I decided to venture out alone and find some sushi. An Internet search led me to a hole-in-the-wall sushi joint run by Koreans.
Fifteen pieces of sushi for under $22. And not the flakes of fish some restaurants push in Ohio. These were long and thick slabs of fresh fish. To give you an idea, the salmon was as long as as the furthest distance I could spread my thumb and forefinger.
The flight out was as good as it gets. The first leg to Chicago I spent the entire flight talking with a medical sales manager. We soon got into politics and religion and found ourselves in agreement. The long leg to Vancouver found me in the seat behind a bulkhead with lots of leg room and the second empty seat of the trip between me and my traveling stranger.
The trip back I was not as fortunate. The first leg was full. The second leg from Phoenix to Cleveland was delayed an hour. With the plane almost fully loaded I had the whole row to myself. Then a guy took the window seat. The call went out that boarding had ended and we had one of the few empty seats between us on the plane.
Yes!
A few minutes later I see this fat guy get up. Fucking Christ. I could see this coming. Sure enough he ambles back and asks if he can sit in the empty seat. Seems the two other two guys in his row were also fat and nobody had shoulder room.
Let me preface the rest of this story by saying I’ve been working my way through “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins, “Letter to a Christian Nation” by Sam Harris and currently, Harris’ amazing “The End of Faith.” Lately I’ve become a little more strident when it comes to mainstream religious tolerance.
My new row buddy was also reading a book: “Become a Better You” by Joel Osteen. I could see the spine of the book in the seat back. I reached into my seat back and flipped the Harris book so he could see “The End of Faith.”
Now I had a decision to make. Do I entertain myself by engaging him in conversation about his book, or do I hunker down and get back to my Sopranos marathon on the MacBook? I decide the latter. When he read the book for short spells I couldn’t help but to glance for a taste of the book.
It short, it’s pure pablum. Amazing how many people fall for this shit.
An hour into the flight the stewardess served drinks and my portly row mate ordered a Jack Daniels. The stewardess informs him that the gentleman from his old row have bought his drink for him. Nothing for me or the poor guy pinned against the window.
Flying sucks.