theology

Thursday, September 27, 2012 ***************************************** THEOLOGY *************************** If God exists, why does He go out of His way to make Himself inaccessible and incomprehensible? If Truth is One, what is it that drives us to invent ten thousand lies? If the Kingdom of God is within us, where is the Empire of the Devil? * “If I cannot answer the most important question, am I not fooling the reader?” Chekhov said. I suspect if we ever have the Answer – which may or may not happen in our lifetime – we will say, But of course! What else? I should have guessed. I had eyes but couldn’t see, ears but couldn’t hear, and a brain but couldn’t think. # Saturday, September 29, 2012 ********************************************* EASY QUESTIONS / OBVIOUS ANSWERS ********************************************* With religious leaders like popes, imams, and rabbis, who needs religion? With Scriptures like the Bible and the Koran that legitimize divisions, intolerance, the persecution of heretics, and the murder of infidels, who needs Scriptures? With monarchs like the Romanovs in Russia, the VIII Henrys in England, and the French Louis who came by the dozen, who needs kings? With bloodthirsty dictators like Hitler and Stalin, who needs dictators? * Speaking of blood: In the Ottoman Empire it was a capital offense to spill the blood of a present or future sultan, so they adopted a different method to eliminate the competition: they strangled all potential usurpers with a silk cord. (And they say Turks are dumb!) * With scary presidential candidates like Romney and Ryan who needs presidents? Gore Vidal may have been right when he said America will be better off without its politicians. To the question, who will run the country, he replied: “Swiss hotel managers.” With historians who cover up the criminal conduct and incompetence of the regime in power, who needs schoolteachers who recycle propaganda? * I am not just asking question: I am predicting the shape of things to come. Neither am I a prophet: I just use my common sense and the lessons of the past. # Saturday, September 29, 2012 *********************************** IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST **************************************** Let’s cut the crap, shall we? Let’s leave rhetoric to our speechifiers infatuated with the sound of their own voice; and let’s leave pious sentiments to our sermonizers whose favorite mode of communication is to say the opposite of what they really think and feel. * I see Armenians as perennial losers and victims whose secret ambition in life is to victimize, and since they can’t victimize others, they victimize their own. As dupes they can’t stand anyone who refuses to be a dupe. As products of millennial oppression by bloodthirsty tyrants they see nothing morally questionable in brainwashing the weak, oppressing the defenseless, and in deceiving the ignorant and the naïve. That’s as far as their conception of patriotism goes. * I know what I am saying. I have been in the belly of the beast and I have dealt with some of our best and brightest. I am not here to flatter our collective colossal ego or to pretend to love you as a brother. Neither am I here to assert my superior brand of Armenianism, whatever the hell that may mean. I leave that to our bosses, bishops, benefactors and their dupes, flunkeys, and hirelings. * Whenever I am told to be kinder to my readers, I reply: A nation that managed to survive the Turk’s yataghan can survive the opinions of a minor scribbler who is here today and will be gone tomorrow. * Abraham Lincoln once said: “Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?” I have tried that method not once or twice but many times. It doesn’t work. I have had better luck with Turks. #