Sounds Legit

Sadly... I saw this on Memebase and it made me wonder...

... Is it any wonder why Atheists and Wiccans (seem to) get along so well? I'm of the opinion that believing in less violent bullshit is, well... still bullshit.

Let's see how many more ellipses I can put in this post...

I guess you could say that the last nail in the coffin for me was hammered down while I was deployed. This is going to sound bad, but in a war-zone, you get used to violence. After a while, distant fire-fights and mortars don't scare you as much. I was what is commonly refered to as a "Pogue" aslo known as a "Fobbit." My job in the Army is not necessarily combat related, but that doesn't mean that combat doesn't find you on occasion (usually in the form of bombs.)

But to this day the most sickening things I've seen from other human beings came from those wearing the same uniform as me, but that's for another post (I've run out of wine.) I just don't get how any all-knowing ever-present being, from ANY pantheon, could ignore such a festering SNAFU as the Iraq War. Worse yet, many Soldiers and Veterans that I still talk to tell me their combat experiences have strengthened their beliefs. I now have a better idea of why battered lovers refuse to leave their abusive partners, perhaps the two situations are not so different...

My last week in Iraq (Baghdad,) I watched a rocket hit a small building with Military Police inside. I'm reasonably certain that some of them were killed.  

The thing about life (and death) in a combat-zone is that you hear the mortar/rocket/bomb hit, there's sometimes an alarm that's usually supposed to go off and warn people followed by the "All-Clear" signal, then if you go back to your room and the internet is down it usually means that someone died in the attack. They shut down internet services to prevent that Soldiers' family from finding out via Facebook.

I don't know anything about those MPs, probably never met them. What did THEY believe in, if anything? Did they pray every day, meditate or speak in tongues... the god that they probably dedicated their lives to, I can't help but wonder if they were afraid in the end and perhaps called out for him... then what?

Crumbling concrete, an alarm... silence (Exeunt.)

People have the right to believe as they wish and on their own terms, but if that were me bleeding out under rubble and hearing only my own straining voice calling out for mercy from my so-called creator, only to behold everything fading to black, I'd imagine I might feel pretty angry and scared. Look where my years of Sunday Sermons and thousands of dollars on devotional books has gotten me, and now it's over.

Pardon me, but I have a serious problem with the idea of a benevolent deity "calling home" such a loyal servant in such a disgusting manner. That'd be a bit like whatever company you work for "promoting you to District Manager" by shooting you in the dick.

Are people so afraid of The Great Beyond that they'll hang off from whatever insanity they can barely grasp like scared monkeys in a forest-fire? Are you really so certain of your convictions that if a rocket were to hit you out of the sky RIGHT NOW, that there wouldn't be some shred of doubt lingering in your mind?

Imagine then what people who believe in reincarnation and "energy" must be thinking, if this had happened to them: Almost there, just a moment more... damn it's cold, I though this was a desert. Wait a sec, nothing's - (dead.) People can't contemplate death because we don't have any experience close enough to it, and NDE's have so far been proven to be little more than high-powered hallucinations caused by the brain shutting itself down.

Maybe when I eventually die, all that LSD will catch up to me.

No amount of prayer or 'energy' in the universe will stop an incoming RPG, as you've no doubt observed. And you'd be very hard pressed to convince me that this is all the plan of a loving god who wants what's best for us. Right, because god clearly knows that war benefits EVERYONE. Maybe shit just happens and sometimes people die in the process, is that really so hard to understand?

After I got home, I never did any spell-work again. After having endured a whole year of almost non-stop despair and horror (but there were a few good times, too) It kinda forced me to really sit and think about why I would anymore. Spells can't even guarantee a winning lotto ticket or a job interview, so who am I to think it can do jack to stop someone from getting killed in the most horrible way I can think of? If witch-craft is a crap-shoot at best, since I've been told time and time again "it doesn't work that way" then why do it in the first place?

Either magic isn't real or I musta' been rolling 1's all these years.

I'm really not trying to be rude or disrespectful, Wiccans and Pagans take a lot of heat from mainstream monotheists just like... well, almost everyone who isn't a theist. But I just couldn't walk away from these questions and I challenge you reading this to think this over, too: If you can't stop a rocket, or summon one yourself, then what is it all for?

As for my old crystals, I'm going to give them to a friend.