One of my favorite quotes about the curious nature of religion and the pursuit of the "spiritual" is: "You know you've created God in your own image when he hates the same people you do."
This quote has been attributed to several people, from Anne Lamott to Gordon Charrick to everybody *except* Pat Robertson and other holier-than-thou types, but whoever said it first, I think they were onto something. Just as people tend to project idealized human qualities onto the Invisible Man In The Sky they conceive of as God, they tend to project similarly human qualities onto him as well -- wrath, harshness, and above all the ability to Hold A Grudge. We're talking, after all, about the same God (or whatever euphemism one uses for the concept) who -- according to the world's scriptures -- thought nothing of nuking Sodom and Gommorrah and wiping out an entire culture of people in India for the unforgivable sin of Pissing Him Off. All of this leads me to a recurring phraseology and way of saying things that one encounters here on FFL. Some folks are overly fond of saying things like, "It's grat- ifying to see you finally reaping the karma for things you've said here," and stuff like that. We've literally seen people on this forum claim that Hurricane Katrina was because of the Laws Of Nature giving those evil folks in New Orleans their "just desserts" for indulging in sex, drugs, rock 'n roll, or whatever Bad Things they were doing. We've seen the same people claim the same things about floods causing destruction in Iowa City while sparing Fairfield. I guess the reason for this is that IC is their local variant of Sin City, and had nothing to do with there being no rivers near Fairfield. :-) Anyway, I'm just rapping about this in the hope that the NEXT time someone here claims to "know" what another person in the public eye (like Lindsay Lohan or George W. Bush or Obama or whoever) or on this forum (like the "known sinners" such as Curtis, Edg, Vaj and myself) "deserve" as karma or as divine retribution from God or the Laws Of Nature that people will realize that what's really going on is that they're projecting their OWN hatred, not God's. Not the Laws Of Nature's. Sometimes the sheer *vehemence* of such statements shocks even me, even after watching the antics of cultists and True Believers for years. When Judy claims to "know" what karma Share "deserves," or when Nabby says that Rick "deserves" to burn in Hell for creating FFL and spreading rumors about his girlfriend Maharishi, I never lose sight of the fact that it's their OWN hatreds they're giving voice to, not some insight into How Things Really Work. They're expressing their HOPES that Bad Things will or should happen to the people they hate, that's all. And they'll find a way to interpret anything that *does* happen to these people they hate AS the karma they "deserve." Sometimes I think that if one of the people on their Enemies List lived to a ripe old age, having made millions of dollars and having given away most of it away to worthy causes, having won the Nobel Peace Prize or having received accolades from most of the people on the planet, and having finally died peace- fully while surrounded by loved ones, they'd find a way to declare that he'd finally gotten his "just desserts." They'd find a way to claim that his death was some kind of "karma" or the "final verdict of the Laws Of Nature." What hubris. What *appalling* ego. None of these people "know" shit. They have No Fucking Idea what the Laws Of Nature "intend," or even that they exist, or have the ability to intend anything. They're just spouting their OWN hatred, cloaked in the holier-than-thou language of spiritual bullshit. Next time this happens, call them on it. THAT might be considered "karma."
