BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

Every Sunday preachers across this country are preaching about Hell and damnation. They claim that if we don't repent and change our ways we're going to die and suffer Hell's fury throughout eternity. While that's a powerful pitch, that's not actually how things work. It is true that bad behavior will cause us to suffer, but our suffering isn't limited to the hereafter; ignorance and bad behavior creates our Hell right here on Earth. Clear evidence of that is that we're currently living in the pits of Hell as we speak.

When God created man, he created him to be complete and self-sufficient. God deals in perfection, thus, man requires neither a user's guide nor technical support to guide his spirituality. God gave man all the necessary tools that he needed to survive in his environment, just like he provided birds with the sense to fly South in the Winter, and the instinct to know exactly which direction to fly in order to reach their destination. Similarly, God provided man with a mind that allows him to create his own destiny, and a conscience that constantly reminds him of right from wrong. In short, God incorporated his word, and his will, within us. It's called "common sense." It is only when we ignore that common sense and allow the corruption of man into the mix that we are led astray.

But man has allowed other men to circumvent God's gift to humanity. We've allowed Godless, greedy, and self-serving men to gain control over our minds by convincing us that we can only know God through them, and that God has made them the gatekeepers of his kingdom. Then, in order to circumvent our God-given common sense, they've convinced many of us that to even question their word on this matter is to smite God's will, and will result in the most severe punishment - again, "throughout eternity."

That threat is a powerful deterrent for the less thoughtful among us to pursue man's natural inclination to embrace logic and reason. So it is through this device that greedy, Godless, and powerful men have convinced the gullible to worship man over God, and to have more "faith" in the words of man than in the deeds of God, and God's clear intent for man to be a logical being. It's the perfect scam. The gullible have been persuaded that they must pay homage to the powerful in order to please God, and they've been convinced to sacrifice themselves and their families on the promise that they'll be rewarded when they die. What makes this scam so perfect is that it's open-ended, and the scam artists never have to worry about anyone ever coming back to say they were lying.

The above scam is totally responsible for why the poor, middle class, and undereducated are experiencing pure hell right here on Earth. The gullible have been convinced by their man-God to embrace hypocrisy, and ironically, it's that very hypocrisy that's causing them to cut their own throats. While these so-called emissaries from God claim that God wants us to love our neighbor, it is the hatred of our neighbor that's driving both our foreign and domestic policy. This nation has been convinced that God frowns upon our failure to protect the rich, and our urge to protect our own families represents "the evils of socialism." As a result , in 2008 $711 billion - 18% of our entire budget - went towards this "Christian" nation's capacity to kill others, while middle-class families have lost their jobs, their homes, and poor people are starving. Where were the Tea Baggers then, or when the Bush administration literally "lost" $8 billion in Iraq, then built an embassy in Iraq that's rivalled only by the Vatican in size and opulence - and on a credit card?

This, they tell us was God's will. They also tell us that it was God's will to send poor and middle-class kids to war - against a country that did absolutely nothing to us - without the necessary equipment to protect their lives. And it was also God's will to make these kids pay for the equipment that had to be cut from their wounded bodies as they lie on the battlefield, and later, forced these young troops to pay for their own meals while they laid in the hospital recuperating from their wounds.

While it is merely curious how the powers that be could get poor and middle-class White people to buy into this scam, it's absolutely astonishing how they got Black people to believe that a White man with blue eyes and flowing blond hair was born in the desert to a woman who never had sex - especially since Black people were taught this while they were tied up next to the mules.

What it goes to show is, if you can get people to fear the Bogeyman (Devil) as children, then continue that lie long enough, passionately enough, and often enough, you can get people to believe in anything - and it doesn't hurt at all if you have opportunists in their own community getting rich off the lie.

The Christian Bible says, "Know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." That's good advice. The people of this nation need to understand that the Bogeyman is not going to get them for questioning a lie. That's not the Devil causing them to question their "faith, " that's God trying to tell them to stop being idiots and use their common sense. The only Bogeyman is man himself, so they should not be afraid to use the common sense that God gave them. God doesn't need an intermediary. He's not saying anything to any other man that he's not saying to all of us. If he did, I'm sure he would have informed Popes of the past that it was inappropriate to torture human beings during the Inquisitions, and certainly he would have pointed out to the current Pope that it was inappropriate to put the reputation of the church before the welfare of children who were being molested by his priests - don't you think?

Now, I'm not saying that all religious people are liars, thieves, or stupid, because that's certainly not the case. Some of the most honorable and well-meaning people in this country are devout Christians, Muslims, and followers of various other faiths, but what I am saying is that they should all take a moment to ask themselves one question: When they embrace the dogma related to them by man, are they truly worshiping God, or are they actually worshiping man himself? After all, if man truly believes in what he's been selling us, then America was founded in direct violation of several of the Commandments - that we shouldn't steal or kill, that we should love our neighbor, and that we should treat others as we want to be treated. In addition, we are currently guilty of colluding with Israel to commit the very same sins against the Palestinian people as we speak. So are we really being led by God?

While I'm not religious, meaning that I make it a point to keep man out of my relationship with God, I am very spiritual. But the God that I believe in would never say that it's alright to go to another country and kill a million people just because they're sitting on oil and don't believe what I believe; neither would he say that it's alright to torture other men as long as we call it an "enhanced interrogation technique." And he certainly wouldn't say that we should condemn an entire religious group based on the actions of a few criminals that just happened to be of that faith.

So my God suggested that I close with the following question: He pointed out that it was "Christians" who enslaved and lynched Black people in the South, so does that mean that Black people should burn Bibles and prohibit Christian churches from being built in the 'hood?

Think about that. Then consider the depth of our hypocrisy.

Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.