As 9/11 approaches....I would like to share this prayer
Now I lay me down to sleep...one less terrorist this world does keep...with all my heart I give my thanks...to those in uniform regardless of ranks...you serve our country and serve it well...with humble hearts your stories tell...so as I rest my weary eyes...while freedom rings our flag still flies...you give your all, do what you must...with God we live and God we trust....Amen!
If they trust God, why send military overseas? Shouldn't God just smite all the enemy with pestilence and locusts and earthquakes and hurricanes and uhhhhh high unemployment rates.... uhhhh nevermind
At least they didn't insist on friends doing a c&p of this drivel, but I just wanted to!
So ... ahem ... In the past ten years, we have experienced murder, mayhem, droughts, earthquakes, hurricanes, and a few terroristic attacks by Muslims. And a few by Christians. And a few that we still haven't figured out the motives for.
And yet we still waste our lives on Facebook and Blogger and youtube as if we're not all individually living under the Sword of Damocles.
Which is nice, because we're not. We have always had a precarious existence. There have always been plots against "good guys" by "bad guys." The story of human history is filled with this kind of stuff, and coincidentally, so is the Bible, which is 100% human.
We don't live our lives looking over our shoulders because you just can't live that way. That's why we sometimes get caught with our pants down, as we did on 9/11 and at Pearl Harbor and as I did a couple of months ago when a deer ran in front of my car. Paranoia is not healthy. We have an innate sense of not worrying about events with low odds other than taking ordinary precautions. I wear a seat belt despite a 20+ year driving history without an accident. It wasn't paranoid to wear the seat belt, and then when I hit that deer... well I didn't actually need the seat belt because the deer got the worst of it, but I'm glad things could have been worse but not worser.
If we were tasty little rodents surrounded by owls and felines and all manner of predator, we would be justified being on edge all the time. Likewise, if we were less fertile and less plentiful.
The world has too many people and we're getting in each other's way and on each other's nerves. 99% of us could be wiped out and the species would probably continue with the genetic material of that 1% left, assuming they could find each other. "God" wiped out humanity before. Why pray to him now, when we've gone forth and multiplied a little too much?
Instead of praying, we should take reasonable precautions and watch out for ourselves and others. We should think a little more about how others are feeling and thinking. We should be aware of how many ways we're vulnerable without being ridiculous about it. We should be humble about our shortcomings and the ways we affect other people without being doormats.
This article is both chilling and thought-provoking: http://www.science20.com/alpha_meme/science_next_911-82474
The author makes the point that what made the 9/11 terrorists so dangerous was their arrogance, a "sin" that isn't unique to Muslims. Chirstian terrorists are just as arrogant and just as dangerous, and they may be lurking around the corner or brewing some overblown resentment against people they consider the "enemy."
I was as disturbed as anyone on 9/11, perhaps more because of having lived in both New York and DC. But what disturbed me more was the arrogance of the Christians around me who seemed so sure that God was on our side, and that all muslims were evil. I was in Texas at the time, but it's not a Texas thang to be a black-or-white thinker. The effect of 9/11 on the psyche really disturbed me, and the reminders of the event kind of make me sick to my stomach. I feel for the people who were there and who were hurt directly, but the people who went a little nuts around the country kind of scare me.
2 comments:
If we go the 'paranoid' then 'they' win. We have to live good, healthy and happy lives. Indirectly 'they' have controlled us. They may not have won the war on the battlefield, but they sure are winning the war of control and fear. Look at TSA, the Patriot Act, government surveillance on it's own peeps. The simultaneous wars has put the economy in shambles (the elephant in the room), the level of fear that they cultivated (with the help of the government and the media) is more destructive than any roadside bomb.
Buddy, that is why secularist, atheist and skeptics are so important...oh yea, and the Mighty Atheist Blogosphere. Awesome buddy,
Kriss
Yep, we can't stay invisible and let believers think they own the planet. Maybe we can even knock some sense into them.
Osama bin Laden even said his goal was to make the U.S. go broke trying to protectitself from terrorism. He must have been pretty self-satisfied when our debt got to be as high as it is. Defense spending was a big part of that.
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