Wrath of the Rural God
by Tony Chavira
I was kind of shocked while hitting up a few churches in Cuba how few people were outwardly religious there. No one seemed to care, and I literally walked into a completely empty cathedral in the middle of Havana in the middle of a Sunday. For sure, there were people in the more rural church spaces, and Santeria Catholicism is alive and well, but generally speaking there's a pretty strong religion/lifestyle divide for most people we encountered in the country.
Maybe it's because I visited a cathedral in the city on a Sunday though... we all know urbanites are sinful folk. According to religious zealots the world over, God's pretty pissed off at humanity right now and a lot of has to do with the sinful ways of city-dwellers. An Iranian Cleric is predicting that God's going to punish us for our urban lifestyles with an earthquake (which is a strange sort of prophesy that'll be brought back up the moment an earthquake hits a place near any city in the near future. Just call that place the most sinful city in the world and move on to bigger and better prophesies). My favorite quote of the Washington Post article about this prediction is this:
"If it is vice that causes earthquakes, there should be floods and volcano eruptions as well in Tehran, because all sins are committed in this huge city," said an unemployed resident who gave his name only as Maysam.
Of course, no one who lives outside of a city is corrupt though. They couldn't possibly be, cities are clearly safe-havens for organized and disorganized crime, whereas rural people are somehow more wholesome and representative of true cultural values (and it doesn't really matter which culture we're talking about here). In reality, crime is pretty consistently determined by wherever the population is located, with (97% of California's population live in cities, and about 98% of our crime is committed in our cities).
But really, who's counting? God clearly isn't.
In fact earthquakes are just a recent form of retribution (Sodom & Gommorah were annihilated by fireballs, remember? Not, say, bad land use decisions). God has already put his bitter plan for our destruction into action and given us President Barack Obama. That's right, you didn't actually vote for him. God manipulated the votes somehow to punish us all directly for whatever we've done wrong. Don't believe me? Ask Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) and Texas state Rep. Leo Berman who told a crowd:
"I believe that Barack Obama is God’s punishment on us today, but in 2012, we are going to make Obama a one-term president"
I'm glad someone can tell me what God wants: a return to values which are largely unsaid because they are essentially masked cultural elitism (or secret followers of the Westboro Baptist Church). But I do feel much less confused, thanks to Rick and Leo... until now, I thought God only cared about kicking back and letting priests grab at young children, then letting an institution prevent those children from ever getting justice. This article in the San Francisco Chronicle should show the rural community what God really thinks of them:
Look around the globe and see how many children have been fathered by priests. So much for that celibacy thing. How about the former archbishop of New Mexico who fathered a child and placed known pedophile priests throughout New Mexico after completion of their "pray away the problem" treatments in NM. When asked by a grand jury why he had allowed the pedophiles to remain priests and placed them throughout a mostly rural, Catholic state the answer was priceless. Apparently he was of the understanding that an abortion or hitting a priest was a bigger sin than pedophilia.
Once again, during the supposed holiest week of the year, the Vatican seeks to portray its victims as liars. The children it abused (now there are allegations of flogging by priests visited on children) have bravely stepped forward to tell their truth. Once again the old familiar claim that they are making it up from the Prada clad types in Rome.
Between earthquakes, pedophiles and Barack Obama, my question is this: when the hell did God ever love us and what does God actually like aside from cultural elitism? Am I to be forever hated by a angry and wrathful Lord just because I was born in Los Angeles?! He put me here!! Sheesh, talk about prophesy... I've clearly been marked for doom by being born in a city. Or at the very least, marked for sin (which doesn't seem as bad comparatively).
UPDATE!! I've been informed that apparently God also hates judges, according to Dr. Reverend Anne Coulter, Esq. Ph.D. That's two-out-of-three of our government branches God's got a vendetta against. Man, we're on a roll!
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