Jerry’s Philosophy 101

My morning paper in review:

Hatred, bitterness, unforgiveness, evil, illness, arrogance, and divorce. Dictators, terrorists, meanness and unkindness. Racism, lawbreakers, gossips, lawmakers and war.

If for every action there is and equal opposite reaction.

Fear, sadness, emotional injury, Treblinka, empathy, snubbing, family dissolution. Subservience, improvised explosive devices, cowering, sorrow. Cross burnings, incarceration, ill will, hopelessness, and desolation.

People like to read about bad things happening to other people. It makes them feel better. How would you like to read a story like "Bill Gates' private fortune increases by 10%!" All that would do is remind you of how little you have compared to him. Much better to read about poor people, so that you can feel like your well off.

Good is not the reaction to the action of evil; good is the cure for evil. Some may say God and Satan are both necessary for a human being to reach his or her full potential.

Jerry, here's a news flash: God created Satan. God had and has a purpose for Satan. God's will is being fulfilled. Satan, and his influence, is a necessary part of the plan, or God would never have created him.

I say “no thank you”. I would rather Satan would spend his time flying a kite than paying any attention to me and mine.

Satan doesn't give a hoot about your wishes or your kites. Neither does God apparently. I doubt God is going to single you out as the one person who has no problems with evil. Maybe you'll get lucky though.

If this really is a war between God and Satan, we are all the victims. I don’t think it is a war however, indeed I think God allows things to happen for our benefit. To build us to be stronger, wiser and more resilient. We do not need Satan for this; we are competent enough at screwing up our lives. Satan is just opportunistic at taking advantage of the opportunity of our poor decisions.

I have a sneaking suspicion about Satan. The book of Genesis says that "the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals that the Lord had made." Now, snakes aren't particulary crafty. They may be more crafty that SOME of the wild animals, but they are after all, just wild animals themselves. What, or more accurately WHO, is more crafty than any wild animal?

I think maybe Satan is like the Internet. You can't point at the Internet and say: "There it is", but it would certainly be wrong to say that the Internet doesn't exist. The Internet is real, and it is practical and influential. What is it? The Internet is something that grew out of a bunch of individual computers communicating. If you were to turn all those computers off, all over the world, the Internet would truly no longer exist.

There is a war. It is God versus me. I am the petulant child, pressing my feet against the ground, stiff-legged and stiff-necked. I may seem that way to God. At least this is what I think.

God loves all of his petulant children.

O.K. enough of that.

No one has infuriated me this week. (I know, I have issues, do you? {Rhetorical question})

I have lots of issues. Issues of "The Amazing Spiderman", issues of "Marvel Two-In-One", issues of "Captain America"... is that what you're talking about?

I am therefore going to change my philosophy from “those people are evil” to “those people were injured by an evil person.” See the loss, not the evil. Too much evil, too much loss.

"Though I lay dying I am content in the knowledge that I will finally meet someone worthy of my wit. Oh, and either those curtains go, or I do."
- Oscar Wilde on God

I hope I am this clever when I pass through the valley of the shadow of death.

Life: it isn’t just Yin and Yang.

It's Yin, Yang and Yahoo!