Can you escape your sins?

I have been watching the CNN Original Series “Jerusalem: City of Faith and Fury” and I must say it has shown me the self-righteousness and political fallacy of the Holy Land. Come to think of it, all the major religions are grounded in the writings of a small group of people who lived within 500 miles of each other three-thousand years ago. It’s as if nothing was happening anywhere else in the world that mattered to God.

Clearly, it was a long voyage from a polytheistic to a monotheistic belief system, but how did the early Jews, Christians and Muslims determine that the Egyptians were wrong? It’s too simplistic to say that God told them so. I attempt to follow the logic but here’s what confuses me. Why would one religion, Judaism, teach that a messiah was coming but when he finally arrived, they disowned him? Mohammad’s relationship with God is like that between Jesus and God, but Islamic elders say there is no savior walking in today’s world and they treat the prophet’s words as the word of God, but alas, have been fighting for more than four hundred years on which wing of the religion is the rightful heir to power.

The political hogwash in the scriptures is disturbing. Some of what appears in both the Old and New Testaments seems more like the thoughts of insecure men rather than the timeless guidance we would like it to be. For example, scripture warns that those who sin, both the quick and the dead, will be judged by Jesus Christ. In other words, it implies that God will act on the sins of a person regardless of whether they are alive (quick) or have passed into the afterlife (dead). So, dying doesn’t erase what a man or woman has done in this life? Boy, I sure am glad I’m not Donald Trump!

As I watch more than 600,000 of my fellow citizens die because of a vicious virus, I can’t help wondering why perfectly good people have been taken from their families and loved ones. Have their earthly sins been so great that they had to suffer a terrible death in a hospital bed, alone?

The uniformed and disbelievers ignore science, and their actions and inactions are causing more death and destruction. Many Americans cannot discern the difference between a myth and a well-researched fact. Millions of people today gravitate toward the worship of idols, as did the Israelites when Moses was on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments. Aaron built a golden calf and those waiting for Moses sought comfort in that shiny metal idol.

Similar to past plagues, many today cannot understand how minor things can be totally disastrous. Like flies on the bellies of rats who stow away on ships bringing goods from faraway places, many people are just along for the ride. Early Americans had no understanding that the pus from a body infected with smallpox could inoculate them from the disease. Their self-righteousness led them to ignore the tribal methods of Africans which then forced smallpox on the world. As man “conquered” the world, viruses and germs continued to kill millions of people. What good is a world that ain’t worth keeping?

I had a thought when waking up this morning, Is God allowing millions of people to die who will also be judged in the next life? Yes, the “quick” die hard, but the dead are dead. Why would a supposedly merciful God, who so loves the world that he gave us his only son, go around taking people away from those they love? The stupidity is not just a current infection.

Do you believe that we killed God’s only son because of the same politics that keep the Middle East from being a peaceful place on this earth? Jesus was a true prophet who spread a unique anti-temple sentiment while pitching the concept of a direct, personal connection to God.  Why, then, are we going through high priests, saviors, prophets and politicians to talk to him? Oh, one more question; how do we know God is a man?

I truly believe that if Jesus Christ or Mohammed were to return to the world today and urge everyone to get a vaccine, the deceivers would say they are democratic operatives. You can save the fire and brimstone. The uninformed still smoke cigarettes and send their money to Donald Trump, so why would they believe Jesus? They don’t even grasp the golden rule. They believe that a certain political religion controls the media and all the banks, so why would they move a muscle for a real savoir? They truly envision their leader coming down from the mountain on August 13 of this year to retake the crown and smite his enemies.

In this case, the quick are the dead. They are walking corpses who cannot understand they are the virus out to destroy the only “God-endorsed country,” the United States of America. They think Jesus was a white man who spoke English. Some of the unwashed even believe that Jesus walked around America. It’s true, just ask Mitt Romney. But it’s not about any one person, it’s about what or who we choose to trust. If we truly Trust in God, then why aren’t we listening?

Moses gave us only ten rules, and the first one is about God and the rest about me, me and me. It’s an egotistical, era bound list that doesn’t stand up to the test of time. One would think God should have been able to see the future so perfectly he would construct a set of rules that could be applied to any age. What, did he mail it in?

I get it, I shouldn’t covet my neighbor’s wife or house, and I guess we all have oxen out back. Why are the commandments written to men but not all genders? Is it okay for a woman to covet her neighbor’s husband? The biggies —Thou shall not murder, Thou shall not commit adultery, Thou shall not steal, Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor — all make sense. However, I would have preferred Mo and God directly saying, “Thou shall not lie.” If I am going to be judged by God as being “quick” or “dead” I would like to know the rules.

The list doesn’t include, “Thou shall not avoid getting vaccinated in order to help my neighbor stay alive.” We also don’t see, “Thou shall not mock the mask to make the virus worse.” Okay, I know God couldn’t think of everything and the tablets of stone were only so big.

Why doesn’t God just send an email to all of us stating clearly what we should do? Or maybe God should have a TikTok channel so he can dance and rap and tell us all to take care of our fellow men and women. Sure, I am being silly, but really, just when we need an all-powerful deity, where are they?

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