By D.Thomas

“So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. The LORD said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; its desire is to have you, but you may master it,” [GENESIS 4: 6-7].

I began essays three or four times over the year, but the World has been so strange that I have not known what to say– I was exhausted by it. The last attempt was in July:

“I think there is a virulent poison ivy cropping up in new places this summer, and that seems to be a good metaphor for this American season.

“It feels like the fire is being blown up, and this might be my public lament.”

I spent the first six months of the year trying to let only minimal details of the news in– if trump, the convicted criminal, is the Republican front runner– I cannot comprehend. His appointed Justices are anti-democratic, and if one considers according to even the simplest system of ethics, the man still comes off criminal…

What can Apologetics do when “Christianity” is sounding toxic, because “Christian nationalism” is not striking everyone as oxymoronic, and scriptures have been weaponized, convincing many formerly good Christian people that it is good to curtail human dignities and rights and freedoms, to ban books, eliminate reproductive rights, and dishonor human identities.

I still want to wrench the name of Christ and the following of Christ from the clutches of the deluded, deceived, and the evil, and raise up the Gospel: God loves you, even if you’ve screwed up, even if you’re not straight, white, and cis-gender.

I am terrified of the fires that might start burning, should trump end up in office. Project 2025, giving the office of President more dictatorial power over governance? Hitler, remember, was elected. I read in a CNN article that this man is supposedly calling for Liz Cheney to face a televised military tribunal for treason (the treason of not supporting him.) I am worried that trump is friends with Putin of Russia and Kim Jong Un of North Korea, so my projection fears an axis powder keg of nuclear-capable powers with megalomaniacs at the controls who could light a fuse with an insult; and should Netanyahu ally with them, the jihad would be explosive … trump says there’s a war on oil and gas? Climate disaster, increasing drought and wildfire, melting roads and and starvation would lie ahead on desert Earth.

And I fear that too many Americans have failed to realize how actions, decisions, laws, actually affect other people. Humans have become remote from each other, especially since the pandemic: others exist mostly on screens and in texts; reactions and feelings are emojis, and responses are “comments;” it is harder than ever to recognize that other humans are as alive, as conscious, as constant and as feeling as oneself, so that abstract “policy,” “regulation,” “law,” does not really do anything if I’m not the one busted for breaking the law, so that other people aren’t as real as “Me” until one of them assaults “Me.” History and the future are just memes.

There are are dozens of Bible verses that seem to describe trump to a T, but of course that is my reading and applying to him, which is not really the way one should read or use scripture; but I am going to stay in the Bible while I send out this cry for people of this nation to stand and shout (and vote) against the darkness, the corruption, the deceit and evil, because they are trying to use the Book to convince Christians of lies.

“Choice,” is, of course, the big point for many Christians, the dangerous word: the adversary is trying to convince people that “choice” is the opposite of “life:” if you are “pro-” one, you must be against the other.

And yet, choice implies options, more than one possibility. One might choose to save the baby and let the mother die, or to save the mother by removing the misplaced, dead, or otherwise life-threatening baby, to carry a baby to term and put them up for adoption, or to raise them, and to receive pre- and post-natal health care. These are all choices for sustainable life and lives.

The position of the leaders campaigning as “Pro-Life” are pushing for forced births, but not for universal health care for the mothers’ and babies’ well-being; they want to cut spending on welfare services; they tend ( and I admit to a generalizing which is not true of everyone) to be pro-2nd Amendment Right To bear Arms, despite gun violence now outranking even auto accident as the leading cause of death of children; pro- open- or concealed-carry, and in states governed by this party, there are stand-your-ground laws: if you feel threatened you can shoot, and it is not murder. They are restricting human rights, which is not in favor of life or even democracy.

One can be Pro-Choice without being pro-abortion; I don’t think anyone ever thinks it is a good thing, but it may be necessary, life-saving, or a woman’s means of self-defense. Surely she might defend her life, as much as the man with the gun who thinks the teenager in the hoodie walking his direction on the same sidewalk might want to mug him.

The adversary doesn’t tell you any of that. The adversary tells you lies, and then asks you to choose between the lies and the spun “facts.” Such as: the refugees and immigrants, sanctuary- or safety-seeking, legal and not, are criminals who want to rape your children, eat your pets, and take your jobs; or that America needs to be taken back from the communist elites (“take America back”? Is trump indigenous?), and high prices at the grocery store and gas station are the Democrats’ fault, or that true Americans are in grave danger from something, from everything except Mr. trump…And because America has become many’s Idol, White, straight, married, apple-pie America comes before all the world, so he has followers.

“Who has directed the spirit of the LORD, or as his counselor has instructed Him? Whom did He consult for His enlightenment, and who taught Hi the path of justice?…even the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as dust on the scales…All the nations are as nothing before Him; they are accounted by Him as less than nothing and emptiness,” [ISAIAH 40: 13-17].

Satan offers falsities and twists and then asks us to choose.

A High Court convicted Jesus of blasphemy.

The stories in Genesis tell us about our early selves, and about God with creation from the beginning; they are stories with important human points, like most early tales, myths, epics, poetically describing the nature of human and other living creatures on this planet, in this cosmos. They are part of the collective unconscious of the human race. Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve and most of the Old Testament figures in this Hebrew Book of the Knowledge of Good and Evil are showing people doing good, and people doing evil (often the same people), and shows God using them and accomplishing God’s work and fulfilling God’s promises in spite of the unruly, inconsistent, and messy human beings who often make bad choices, and this can be read, as tales of psyche’s path of Individuation.

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.”‘ But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’….” [GENESIS 3: 1-5].

The serpent begins with a falsehood, (“You must not eat from any tree…?”) which the woman corrects, and he follows that correction with another twist of truth (“You will be like God…”).

She is already like God, made in Their Image, and with Spirit breathed into her human race. Spirit which convicts us of sin and righteousness; Spirit is and is of and is from God, just as Creation, everything that is made, is made of the matter of which, from which, through which Jesus was made.

It nowhere says that it is bad, or even that it was unintended, that humanity should know the difference between good and evil.

God curses the serpent for leading the woman to disobey, and, indeed, for lying to the woman about God.

“The LORD said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals…I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.’ To the woman he said, ‘I will greatly increase your pain in childbirth; in pain you shall bring forth children…’And to the man he said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you “You shall not eat, of it,” cursed is the ground because of you…'” [GENESIS 3: 1-5,14-17].

The woman was not cursed, but told that she would give birth in pain ( look at a baby’s head and a woman’s pelvis– how could it ever be otherwise before epidurals?)

The man himself was not cursed, but “the ground because of” him. His fault was not of listening to his wife, (or listening to a woman who should not rule over a man, or a woman because a woman is inferior to a man), but because he listened to what a human said over what God had commanded. The woman was the only other human around in this story, but the message is that the man broke God’s rule because of what a human told him, who had been lied to about, and had accepted the falsehood about, God.

The word Sin is not used.

Sin turns up when God speaks to Cain, when Cain is angry, understandably, and God tells him he has a choice, to act with the eager sin, or to do the right thing, and bring a better offering, an actual sacrifice. Cain chooses his action.

The first human sin was murder.

What “Original Sin” got humans expelled from the Garden of Eden, then? Perhaps not their act, but the Spiritual sin, Satan’s sin, of lying about God.

The unforgivable blasphemy, Jesus said, is against the Holy Spirit: calling The Spirit Who Reveals the Truth About God false, of Beelzebul, or: lying about God.

I have written before about the New Testament being recorded in relatively modern times, when the writing of documents and orders, and the recording of histories were well advanced: libraries existed, and many of the tales had been written down, and I believe the Gospels are as true and reliable as any texts, but you might not; in that case, read the stories as we read the others, of Eden and the exodus or flood, read Jesus as Creation Revealing Creator to humans of planet earth, materially and in history, (circa 30C.E.) because we humans are made of atoms and molecules and live at points in space- time.

(Jesus said) “‘I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. But if you had known what this means, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice,” you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath,’ He left that place and entered their synagogue; a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, ‘Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?’ so that they might accuse him. He said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has only one sheep, and it falls into a pit on the sabbath, will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the sabbath.’ Then he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand. He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him how to destroy him,” [MATTHEW 12: 8-14].

Before he began his teaching and healing, Jesus went to the wilderness alone to fast and pray and to face the Adversary, the Enemy, Satan Itself. The four Gospels record the Temptations, through which Satan, who says that he has been given all the kingdoms of the earth, offers Jesus ways to power that do not involve humiliating suffering or excruciating death, but Power and Glory, pomp and miracles, bread and circuses. He could lure all people to himself with miracle food if they followed him– they would never go hungry again– which Scar promises the hyenas in Lion King– or if he showed how the angels aided him, or if he worshiped the Spirit Of Worldly Wealth And Personal Power And Glory.

But Jesus came “not to be served but to serve” (MATTHEW 20:28, MARK 10:45) and even:

“…knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he came from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet,” [JOHN13: 3-5a ].

With one candidate spinning lies and glorifying himself, firing staffers who did not agree with or pander to him throughout his political career, and who is convinced that he could only lose if it is all rigged against him, a cheat and a steal, who is depicted as a Rambo with guns and a six-pack and a semi-automatic and a flag and is followed no matter how many treasons and crimes he’s been tried for and found guilty of, I couldn’t help contrasting the man who humbly stepped aside for another candidate to run, because he knows that it was and is not about him, personally, but the goals of the party and needs of the voting people, whom he was still serving and will be working for as a public servant until the transfer next Inauguration day.

The checks and balances of the three branches of the U.S. Federal government., and the limit of Presidential terms are the admirable and revolutionary tenants of the Nation, which the right wing purports to support and defend, yet are the checks that the right wing plan is to alter, remove, granting one office– the one man’s office, greater power over even the Congress, opening his way to dictatorship, if all goes his way.

His way also involves drilling and pumping up all the oil and gas and ignoring the damage being done, the suffering and displacement of living beings of countless species in addition to our own.

His way is that of his own aggrandizement, power and glory.

These are the temptations and possibilities that Jesus rejected.

They are the temptations Satan put forth.

“But to the wicked God says: ‘What right have you to recite my statutes, or take my covenant on your lips? For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you. You make friends with a thief when you see one, and you keep company with adulterers. You give your mouth free reign for evil, and your tongue frames deceit;'” [PSALM 50: 16-19].

“‘Either make the tree good, and the fruit good, or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit…out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person brings good things out of a good treasure, and the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure. I tell you, on the day of judgement you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned,'” [MATTHEW 12: 33-37].

American citizens have a choice to make in this upcoming election, which will affect themselves, and the hemisphere’s poor, and the peoples of the whole world because of the power, wealth, influence, and occupance of the U.S.A. and its interests, investments, allies, watchers, and enemies.

Choose wisely.

If you call yourself Christian or humanist or good, choose help and healing, choose feeding and sheltering and giving water to the poor and the stranger, not the withholding of the drink of water, the blanket, the dollar for the meal.

The hurricane devastation of Helene, and the pouring forth of aid, money and supplies, and the mule and pack teams getting them through has shown that we are better then those stirring up hatred and fear want us to remember.

Choose not just birth, but actually life and some chance of healthy life in the future. Choose love, not one puffed up with self-love, and self-glory.

When Jesus was accused of healing and of casting out demons by the power of Satan, when the religious rulers called the Spirit That Reveals The Truth About God and Is God and was the power upon him (when they called good evil and their evil, good), Jesus said,

“‘Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. whoever speaks against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come,'” [MATTHEW 12:31-32].

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