Your religion is dying, say religious leaders

I'm fairly and equally intolerant of most religious tenets - particularly those which have no place in the modern, Internet-dominated world. Particularly those that have no relevance to a culture genuinely headed toward moderate - private - belief in whatever the hell you choose to believe in. I'm all for you believing it. Just keep it the hell to yourself and don't try to make it *everyone's* truth, okay? Sam Harris isn't preaching hate. He is the only person (besides myself, ahem) who calls Islam on its bullshit without condemning all Islamists . . . but at the same time, yeah, condemning them for their hellish, war-like beliefs. Seriously! Don't show me a turd and try to explain to me it isn't a turd. It's a fucking TURD! I can see it! Smell it! Touch it.....if I want to. Which I don't..............or do I...?

Every time I see someone write, or hear them say, "Islam is a religion of peace," I want to scream at them (and sometimes do), "Have you read your f----ing Quran lately?" But I don't discriminate - and you'll never accuse me of doing so - because the Big One in the Christian world is also argued to be "a religion of peace." But you don't need to look far to read about a genocide, pedophilia, rape, torture or just utter nonsense happening in large amounts in the Bible. Seriously. Open up a random passage in the Old Testament without looking. My money is on God is killing some folks in said passage for not being scared enough of him.
Not saying that *some* wisdom cannot be found in these old tomes. I'm saying that we are beyond it now, creating our OWN wisdom because we have access to so much more than they did. (And for the record, NO, they did not have access to heavenly beings. Their "miracles" are either completely fabricated by those who came after, or charlatans' tricks. (FYI the Bible as a complete text wasn't written or compiled until 400 YEARS after the death of Christ.) Still some HOLY shit though, right??? If you think the Bible, the Quran, the Torah or any other religious text is the inspired Word of God, good on ya, pal. You go and believe the holy hell out of that shit! But when that same text tells you to do bad shit to me and mine, simply because we don't agree with you? That's where you fucked up big time. That's where your ENTIRE way of life screwed you in the ass, pal. Because I. Will. Fuck. You. Up. Without remorse, without hesitation, without guilt and without reservation. I will fucking OWN you. You let that sink in, noble Reader. I am the nicest fucker you will ever meet, but when you let your religious bullshit deliberately try to influence MY little girl? I will fuck you up. Let there be no mistake, no miscommunication. I ain't your typical tree hugging liberal. I'm that fucking weirdo with all the guns and the attitude. I'm that badass who went and studied martial arts because he wanted to know how to defend himself against assholes like you, the rabid Trump supporters. Sadly, I thought you fucking douchebags were in the minority! Now I got my work cut out for me, apparently. But mistake my kindness for weakness.....please.

My point - all these desert religions you guys are still grasping onto have literally NOTHING to do with the world today. As my brother used to point out to me in his unexpected wisdom, you can read literally any horoscope from the newspaper and relate it back to yourself. Go ahead. I'll wait. And frankly, astrology makes more sense to me than all the major world religions, even though I know for a fact it's horseshit.

They - these ancient, desert religions - cannot coexist comfortably in a world in which language barriers are all but nonexistent. They cannot exist comfortably in a world in which all of the world's information is literally seconds away, at the touch of a fingertip. No wonder all the televangelists are preaching "End Times!" Because it truly is for them, hah. We are outgrowing religion, y'all. And the priests, preachers and imams all see it. They see it and it absolutely terrifies them. That's why televangelists having been saying for nearly half a century that the world is ending. That's why imams are requiring their most avid, shit-crazy soldiers to step up and "prove" whatever the fuck it is they're trying to prove. They're scared. The Information Age does not agree with them, their ideology. I mean, obviously, the answer ain't Scientology, but if we are going to persist in believing in religious dogma, we need to come up with a belief structure that fits US, not desert dwellers who lived two millennia ago. We are beyond that nonsense in every way. We're better than they were. We live longer. We're more knowledgeable, we're smarter, and LITERATE. We can read these religious tomes for ourselves - if you bothered to - and see them for what they are. Utterly ridiculous fairy tales predicated on the idea - no, the strongly held belief - that everything in them is true and goddamn rational! It. Is. NOT.

And that's another thing that makes me want to pull my hair out. So, so many educated people who still buy into it, too afraid to say what they really think about it for fear of being persecuted by their fellow Muslim/Christian/Jew/Hindu - and I use slashes instead of commas because they are all pretty much the same to me. I admit that I DO want to offend you with this missive, but only enough to make you think. I don't want to offend you so much that you want to kill me. For some, I'm sure it's probably too late. You'll be dancing on my grave after everyone leaves the service. Which is another funny thing you may not know about me - I am perfectly willing to have a Christian burial. I'll do this for my family, for the handful of people that love me, because it will make *them* feel better, and I want them to be happy. I will go to my deathbed knowing that it won't make two shits difference in the grand scheme of things, but if it makes those I love happy, then so be it.

One last thing, when my mom was on her deathbed, I told her I had rediscovered Jesus, that I knew I was going to Heaven. Yes, I lied to her. But to see that smile on her face, I would say that same lie a thousand times over. She died, a contented smile on her face, believing that my soul would be alright. She was correct. It will be. I'm a pretty good dude once you get past that religion stuff. Assuming I have a soul. Assuming, if there is a god, that fucker isn't ANYTHING like the terrible beast it's depicted as being in all these ancient desert tomes (sidebar - I find it more than a little hysterical how some lost, ancient manuscripts are considered Bible canon, yet others - just as validated and ancient - are immediately rejected by the Catholic church....which, guess what, Evangelicals? Everything you believe, pretty much, was created by the Catholics....that's funny as hell to me), then yeah, I think I'll be pretty smurfy. And whatever you may think of me, my mom died "knowing" I would meet her in Heaven. To my atheist and agnostic friends who insist they make their parents miserable because mom and dad "just don't get it?" I say, Fuck You, you selfish, insensitive asshole. Costs you nothing.

Trump denies allegations of narcissistic personality disorder until he's told it's desirable - now says he's the best NPD in the world, say Washington insiders

So I'm watching an interview with Trevor Noah on CBS. And of course the conversation leads to Trump, and Noah's interview with Obama. But I took issue with Noah early in 2016, after discovering he was not who I believed, and to be truthful, wanted, him to be. I like Noah, I do. He has a genuine sweetness to him, he is ostensibly a really humble guy, and he seems for the most part honest. But as intelligent as he is, he absolutely had to know Hillary was the wrong person to run against Trump. She did not have the popularity or the moral fortitude to win. The news media couldn't let go of the ridiculous emails, and Noah couldn't stop gushing over Hillary even when she was well behind Sanders in the polls.


And it isn't because I was a Sanders supporter (I was, unashamedly - still am, actually) that Noah's constant kissing of the hem of Clinton's dress bothered me. It was because it was done so blatantly, and the audacity with which he did it made it clear to me he was being influenced, or outright ordered, by those higher up the food chain to support Hillary publicly. The Democratic National Convention apparently has far more influence over its members than does the Republican National Convention, because the DNC got the establishment candidate they wanted, and the nimrods at the RNC were apoplectic when Trump took the nomination. Indeed, it would not have surprised me all that much if they had rescinded his nomination. Indeed, they had a fucking moral obligation to do so because Trump, simply put, is a bad person.

Forget all the other synonyms with which Trump is commonly - and accurately - associated; words like "xenophobic," (the most Googled word of 2016, incidentally) "racist," "misogynistic," "bigoted," etc. Surely those alone should have disqualified him with the American public. But what really flies in the face of reason is that none of his millions of supporters seemed to mind that he is an admitted sex offender. They did not mind that 12 different women - TWELVE!!! - came forward to testify that he had made inappropriate sexual advances toward them. I can see someone paying off one, maybe even two - but 12??? They did not mind that he made a mockery of the public debate by defending his dick size - repeatedly - on national television. Or the childish and very un-presidential name-calling he can never seem to get enough of.

They did not mind that he is cripplingly insecure (very likely the source of his name-calling). They did not mind that he has been caught in more lies during his campaign than any other president in history in their entire term(s) in office. They did not mind that he was almost literally born with a silver spoon in his mouth - apparently they still believed he knew and understood the problems of the American working class, despite the fact that the man has never done an honest day's work in his life. (Sorry, but merely owning real estate and hiring other people to buy and sell more of it is not work.) And they did not mind that he is a textbook asshole. He did exceptionally well with white women in the polls, sadly, and shockingly well with African Americans, considering his natural propensity for offensive language . . . and, you know, that thing he did on the bus that he bragged about . . . the thing which makes him an admitted sex offender.

"Nobody knows the system better than I do," Trump boasted again at the the RNC - which would be insanely laughable if he were not about to be running that same system he knows literally nothing about. One thing he knows about the system very well indeed? How to pander to the fearful. (And how to toot his own horn, of course.) And conservatives have been clinically proven to be more fearful and aggressive to that which is uncommon or unfamiliar, and they also have a higher tendency to blame others (sadly, it's the poor and downtrodden conservative politicians so shamelessly blame for this country's woes) when things go south. Or rather, fearful, aggressive people who like to blame their problems on others overwhelmingly tend to be conservative, if that makes you feel better.

Which brings me to my second point: He literally cannot take criticism. Worse, he does not have the ability to admit any lack of ability or knowledge of, or about, anything. According to Trump, he ties his shoes the best, and he is 'amazing' at brushing his teeth. Speaking of teeth, despite any formal training, I am only slightly joking when I say I think he would probably contend that he was the best dentist as well. Hate to keep reusing this word, but here, it is the only one that works, and that is . . . he is literally the most thin-skinned person I have ever seen. He is bizarrely infantile, or as Jon Stewart put it, "he's like a man-baby." Very appropriate in this context, few could honestly deny. He rants at anyone who disapproves of him, and his is a case of textbook, clinical, narcissistic personality disorder. And it is closely related to sociopathy.