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| Rob's Soapbox | ||
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Congratulations!
You have finally landed on the one page on this entire site (and on the entire internet for that matter) that is purely without bullshit... my soapbox page. There are a lot of times during our show that, whether it's because of time constraints and other obligations, I don't always get to address some issues that I feel don't get the attention they deserve. There are even more times when I just don't feel like waiting until the show the next day to get some things off my chest. Thus, I have started the "Rob's Soapbox" page. If you have clicked on this page looking for someone to coddle your fragile sense of self-esteem, or tell you what you want to hear or to reinforce your outdated world view, then exit this page right now and go somewhere else. If you are in search of the last forum for reason and common sense left in the world, then sit back, relax, and enjoy. I make only one promise with this soapbox page... if you read long enough and often enough, you will eventually be offended. So here's my latest soapbox. Listen up, 'cause you just might learn something... |
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May 21st, 2007 MY GOD DOESN'T HAVE A SELF-ESTEEM PROBLEM I love my God. My God has a sense of humor, doesn't need money and just wants me to do the right thing even when no one else is looking. He doesn't need to be told by me that he's great, because like all great leaders, he is already confident in himself. My God doesn't put me down, threaten me, or motivate me through fear, he just gives me the never ending opportunity to grow as a human being, helping me to understand that while the Earth may be a global community, I am the only person on the planet that I can control. When I do screw up, he shows me that there is a consequence to my mistake and allows me to choose whether the consequence is worth the risk more than once in my life. My God is pretty fricken cool and I really, really wish more of you knew him. A long time ago some clown uttered the phrase, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." It is unclear through history who said it first and what the intent of the speaker was, but such minutia have proved unimportant for the phrase has stood the test of time. Dumbed down to its essence, the phrase essentially means a variety of other things including a few other clichés; two steps up, two steps back, life is cyclical, blah blah blah. Choose whatever way you want to recognize it, but the eternal truth is the same; for every step of progress the human race makes, it takes a collective step backwards and equally as important, no matter how much some things may change, certain things won't. For example, we are less likely to openly ridicule gays and African Americans right now in America, but more likely to chide, mock and impugn overweight people and any white man. That's not progress or growth, it's simply shifting the bigotry and hate. Based on 2006 figures and a trend that has been consistent for 5 years now, we are less likely to smoke cigarettes today than 20 years ago but more likely to drive drunk. Both are dangerous and stupid, but we've really accomplished nothing in the abstract to save human life or change self destructive human behavior, we've simply shifted the method. After 20 years of preaching abstinence, teenage sex in America is at an all time low, but teenage anal sex is at an all time high because they don't consider it sex, thus creating a new groundswell of STDs. Teen pregnancies are down, but teen alcoholism is at an time high. Five years ago, all the kids loved Ecstasy, today they all drink cough syrup until they pass out in their own puke. The more things change, the more they stay the same. We spend lifetimes believing that we make a real difference only to find out that all we did was shift the behavior. Nowhere is the lack of progress on Earth more apparent than in the religious world, lead diligently by the Catholic Church, which apparently has a policy against any form of adaptation, growth, maturity or common sense. Those of us fortunate enough to have not been indoctrinated into some form of forced thought as a child have always looked sideways at all religions for their seemingly endless line of hypocrisy and double standards but the Catholic Church has always found a way to "kick it up a notch," and stay one step ahead. All religious sects, for the most part, have begun on the same basic premise; My God's dick is bigger than your God's dick and if you don't believe me, I will kill you. That emboldened the followers but didn't keep them in line, so the churches needed to come up with part two, which was, basically, God is an angry little man with no self esteem and if you piss him off he, being all knowing and all loving, will send you to an eternity of hellfire…and, anything you do that is not directed hatefully at someone who believes differently from us is defined as something that "pisses God off." That kept people in line for a few good centuries. Decades ago when a variety of great thinkers created a public forum on forgiveness, thought trumped emotion for a few scant moments as people were forced to face the issue of vengeance. No one, no where has been more responsible for death on the planet than religious fanatics avenging their God, yet, ironically, most all religions preach forgiveness. The argument at the time was that religious zealots who were killing, hating or being intolerant of others were not following the teachings of their God, they were in fact, acting in barbaric ways that would offend their almighty. The more it was talked out, the more it made sense and for a brief moment in time people started to acknowledge that it was time to eschew the idea of a vengeful God and a hypocritical following, and started to preach the idea of forgiveness (and thus, acceptance) as being the ultimate step towards enlightenment. For a little while, we actually all started to look inwards, at ourselves, and started to realize that forgiveness was actually between you and God and no one else and that anyone else's forgiveness was none of your business. Some even started to ask God for the strength to forgive others…it was all starting to come together. Then the religious community of the world, knowing that in their world, without fear and anger there is no discipline, came up with an idea; a wonderful, awful idea akin to only the Grinch himself; the church publicly redefined forgiveness. It was a sheer stroke of cunning, genius and evil all at once. Recognizing that people had to hate and be afraid in order to need a Church in their lives, the religious groups of the world united and actually decreed that they had heard from God that an update edition of God's Schmebster's Dictionary was on the way and had redefined forgiveness. It was now no longer our problem. God, we were told, is in charge of forgiveness, not us. This ultimately lead us to the now famous phrase in the Denzel Washington movie "Man on Fire," uttered as he was systematically torturing and killing bad guys, when he said "forgiveness is between them and God, it's my job to arrange the meeting." That line was a wonderful, and perhaps unintentional, summary of how religious zealots in the nation defend murder and hatred. That's one hell of a God ya got there; one who looks the other way as long as you're killing people he told you he needed to see for a forgiveness hearing. That kind of makes God the ultimate mob boss, doesn't it? So much for that 6th Commandment about not killing. This later morphed into the laughably asinine "Hate the sin, love the sinner," position of the 90's, which is still my favorite. Circa 2007 brings us a full circle, the more things change moment, brought to you by Pope Benedict himself, who is trying as hard as he can to make as much of the world as possible hate the Catholic Church during his term as the Earth's deity. The Pope informed us that we have an update from God. He's upping the ante in the vengeance department and is going to fire up Hell's oven again so sinners beware. Apparently Pope Benedict looked over the Vatican PNL sheets and found that desperate times call for desperate measures. When in doubt, go to what got you there, and in the case of the church, that means fear. The Pope needs followers and he needs them quickly, so apparently the religious leaders of our time held a "Camp David" type summit and have decided to roll out the 'ol Hail Mary pass that has always scored them a touchdown; fear of God. Despite their seemingly endless blunders though, this current group of religious leaders in the world is a cunning one. The Pope knows he can't go for the big ball of wax all at once, so he has apparently formulated a plan; STEP ONE: Remind the lemmings that God has an anger problem STEP TWO: Demonstrate this by pointing out God will make sure really bad people on Earth (to be identified shortly) burn in Hell for all of Eternity. STEP THREE: Once the first group of "bad people" has been identified, slowly role out additional "bad people" who are less bad each week, until the lemmings believe that Pope John Paul himself is running Hell. STEP FOUR: Collect billions, rule Earth. And so the plan has begun as last week the Pope took the courageous stand of publicly announcing that Drug dealers were bad people and God doesn't like them. Moreover, God will "call them to account" which of course implies that all of you smoking a joint while you read this are also on God's express elevator to Hell. Next week, the Pope bravely impugns rapists! Go Pope! Here's hoping that my God wins. One of the things I look forward to most about death is finding out that I'm right. It will be a blast to sit back on my lazy boy chair made of clouds, smoking a cigar with God (and you know he gets only the really good cigars) and discuss the frailties of humanity, watching them all as they live out their eternity in a peace none of them could ever find here on Earth.
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