The one where my heart cries out

I've watched from afar as hate-filled, foul-mouthed radicals grabbed their guns, figuratively and otherwise, in ignorant or feigned offense to resist the inevitable tide of human evolution.  Not dispassionately, I have participated in elections and discussions, when discussions have been possible, about the need for our species to overcome its basest animal instincts and learn to cooperate for the good of us all rather than the good of only the lucky few.  If I believed in any of the gods mankind has created, I might be forgiven for thinking that Man's recent history was a divine test to see whether or not we are worthy, worthy of the very gift of life itself.

Nationalism had its heyday in the 20th century, but it is far from gone.  Humankind still attaches fierce loyalties to their paternal, or maternal, homelands, suspiciously paranoid, jealous, or both about any people who are not members of their group.  People so given to parochial fealty will not, and perhaps they cannot, see beyond the nearsighted goals of their immediate environment, their group mythology, and their immoderate impulses.  In the times of my life, I have witnessed the blossoming of greed beyond all that has ever gone before us, from big business bilking us in the marketplace to Christian prosperity evangelists robbing the gullible masses.  The sense of entitlement has grown from the simple notion of a fair shake for all people to a savage scramble for the brass ring.  

What is most distressing in my lifetime is the baptism of this culture of greed and entitlement into the christian faith.  Though Jesus was not a real person of history, the words placed in his mouth are sometimes wise beyond the ability of his disciples to understand or accept.  Meekness and peacemaking have been abandoned.  My own mother said more than once, "Jesus never told us what to do after we turned the other cheek!"  The implication being that after strictly fulfilling a religious duty, we are free to violate the spirit of that duty in order to satisfy our baser instincts. 

The new christians have wearied of trying to convert the world to their way of life.  They have failed even to convince each other of the proper way to live, so they have turned to do what the christians of the 4th century also did, plunder the government for the resources necessary to enforce their dogma on believers and non-believers alike.  The current chaos created by the religious is witness of their failure.  If their ideologies were worthy, people would adopt them willingly.  As it is, they must turn to coercion and fear to maintain their dying religions.  Though they rally against the government when the majority are not in their favor, they are thoroughly devoted to the government when they are in the majority.  Honesty and fairness are now relative values.  They somehow believe that they must install the kingdom of God by force rather than await the coming of their Messiah.  Maybe they really don't believe that God will come to save them.  Maybe it's this doubt that makes them behave so badly, to set themselves in the place of God on earth to judge mankind in God's stead.  Whatever the cause, it is humanity's responsibility to not waver in the face of this onslaught, to stand firm in the knowledge that, live or die, what is right is right, and evil cannot prevail.   At all costs, it must not prevail.