Fourth stalking example: Buddhism for the young

My niece is born Catholic, but not raised in the faith at all, really. And she's also of that generation who grew up smoking pot in high school, which she did. She's a wonderful girl and very sweet, but like many of that generation the focus was not on reality. She has found herself now in a great career, has her first home, a fine boyfriend, and even hangs out with the occasional "celebrity" through her job.

But years ago when she was still starting out on her career and bouncing around in relationships, she sent me a birthday or Christmas gift, I forget which (probably birthday because Christmas would have been very strange), that really made me raise an eyebrow. She sent me a Buddha statue and with it a note assuring me that it would "bring me luck." This would have been in the 1990's I think. Much more than fifteen years ago as best as I can recall.

Now, on face value this was understandable as part of the "generation X chic" about mystical Far East decorations and so forth. But I'm no fool. I knew that someone had been 1) talking to her about "New Age" Buddhism (since traditional Buddhism is more prosaic and devout than handing out Buddha as a good luck charm) and 2) put her up to giving one to me. But she lived across the country and had been out of touch for many years (she was mad at me for a whole lot of years because I once chastised her about how much my brother, her dad, had to work and worry to pay her bills), so I did not know any of her circle of friends and acquaintances, or her mindset really. I was touched that she cared enough that I was going through difficult times to want to send me "good luck" so I valued the gift accordingly. But I am no idiot. I knew that someone had deliberately gotten to her to "convert" her to some crazy New Age beliefs (not authentic Buddhism) and was also trying to get to me. Again, they keep thinking that I'll take the hint and bite my lip in dramatic agony, wringing my hands and going, "Oh My! I Must Have Had A Tragic Past Life! Some Money Grubbing Insane Person Who Is Spiritually Enlightened Please Help Me!" *Pauses to throw up a little in my mouth*

Well, imagine when we forward in time to the year 2003. I was still in touch with an ex boyfriend, mostly because I was concerned about his tendency to alcoholism. So we tried to stay email friends. I used to be close to his children. Well, imagine when one day he emails me to tell me his oldest daughter has "gotten in Buddhism" and "given him some books to read." HA HA HA. How stupid do I look? (A lot I guess). It took me one nanosecond to make the connection. Ten years had passed and the same "approach" was being used: get to the generation X of non formed Christian youth and convert them to the insane "New Age version of so called Buddhism" (again, not a slam at the traditional faith, but one of this manipulable 'past lives' mush of garbage).

Once again I do not take the bait and once again I put a positive good Christian spin on it. I mean, these are people who while born C of E only attend on Christmas and have no real faith, plus they have mondo drinking problems. So I thought, well, having some spirituality, even yucky and poopy spirituality, is better than nothing. The ex-boyfriend even went on a semi-spiritual Buddhist location type vay cay (vacation) and mentioned that it helped him have a different view of his drinking. So I figured, hey, that's what I wanted, for him to dry up and get some sort of spiritual perspective, and so I let it pass without criticism and just encouragement of a generic sort.

But how stupid do these people think I was? They must have thought, "Core! She is dense and dumb, in addition to being too old and too fat!" ("Core" is an old fashioned Brit exclamation, ha ha, just being literary here.) They keep twirling NAB (New Age Buddhism) in front of me and "getting to" the next generation of poorly formed Christians (something I am painfully aware of and part of my mission that was put on hold by the stalkers, obviously) and I just would not react! I'd like to think that it was around this time that they started getting a clue. I mean, they saw me praying in St Patrick's Cathedral several years before, so duh, what would that have been about if I was "wallowing" not "remembering" my poor and pathetic "past lives?" *Throws up in mouth a little more*

See, this is the problem. They don't want the truth. They want everyone to believe whatever crap they pull out of their drunk and stoned asses and say that "it's all relative, so long as you are spiritual." Christianity (and Islam) have done people no favors by not talking about the reality of hell and how many people are going to go to hell because of being mini anti-Christs (while accusing others of actually being the Antichrist) and for preying on the poorly formed younger generations.

Third stalking example: creepy alien rapture

In the late 1980's through mid 1990's I worked in the advanced technology section of a major Wall Street bank. I had a group of mostly well adjusted and normal people working for me, though the occasional odd thing did happen that I noticed.

The most obvious is that one day one gave me a xeroxed "report" for me to look at. This was in the early 1990's and would have been around the time of the first World Trade Center bombing. I don't have any of my office diaries with me, but I think this happened before the bombing. Anyway, one of my employees gave me this "xeroxed report" "as a laugh." It was long and totally unreadable. It was some sort of insane "revelation" by someone or something with a Z in the name about "the Rapture" and "aliens." If you put insane chimpanzees on LSD for a year they could have come up with something better than this garbage. It was so awful that I could not even read it for the lulz.

I knew on the spot that it was no "coincidence" that an otherwise wholesome member of my staff would have such a crazy piece of crap as this fall into his hands. Remember, this was in the day before spamming in email where all sorts of stuff now flies around, both crazy and sane. This was a xeroxed pamphlet kind of thing, sounding a lot like the secret teachings of Scientology, except even dafter, if you can imagine that. So I knew that this was a deliberate effort to get a "reaction" from me. My reaction was, as I said, that it wasn't palatable to read even for a sick twisted giggle. So I didn't even pick it apart to critique it because it was just totally unreadable to anyone who was sane, honestly. Buddhism I could pick apart and critique, for example. But aliens and the rapture with totally hysterical (as in manic depressive) "concepts" that make atheists look like they have their heads screwed on straight? I just handed it back with an *eyeroll*.

I guess the stalkers thought I was particularly stupid to not appreciate the brilliance of "the secrets" being handed right to me. Oh my God, will this human race survive? It has such a death wish.

Dennis Leary = Putz

I'm listening to Glenn Beck's interview with actor and erstwhile comedian Dennis Leary. What a putz! I don't mind the obligatory jokes about wacky nuns in his childhood Catholic school, although those jokes are so old that Methuselah remembers them, and there weren't even nuns in his time. And I understand that many children interpreted admonitions as promoting fear.

But he, now as a big boy adult all grown up and everything, really crosses the intelligence line with two points. One is to not understand what "fear of God" really means. I noticed Glenn tried to throw him a little lifeline by using the word "awe" but of course, DL (author of the upcoming book "Kiss My Irish A$$" so draw your own conclusions about the title and character) ignores Glenn's hint.

Fear of God means to have respect for God as the creator of all, and the one who will judge how one conducted one's life. Fear refers not to "terror" but fear refers to the fear of losing one's way to God, and ultimately, losing salvation.

The second point is the crack that he would have respected Jesus Christ more if he had "taught the people to fish" rather than produce the bread and fish miraculously to feed the hungry crowd. This comment is so stupid in so many ways that I'm tempted to ignore it, but oddly, it's the second time I heard that "criticism" in the past two days. Devil PR? LOL. Makes one wonder.

Anyway, first of all, all the people who attended the sermons knew better than Jesus (a carpenter) how to fish and farm, dummy. That's how they lived and supported their family. Dennis, I know it's hard to imagine a time before D'Agastinos, but try really hard. All of those people raised and caught their own food already.

In fact, if you had been awake during Bible lessons you'd remember that a good half of the apostles were fishermen by trade. Jesus would accompany them fishing and point out good spots, but the apostles provided Jesus with his fish meals (including once after the resurrection, before he ascended into heaven.) So Jesus was actually the one who would not have been doing any "teaching you all to fish" lessons.

Instead, you had thousands of men (and some of their families, the Bible only counts the men in attendance) sitting all day listening to Jesus preach, far from their home food stash. Dude, think of it like being at a really big Woodstock but no one brought anything to eat. People were faint with hunger, and in those days, there was no Walmart to go to for fixings for thousands of people. People walked in those days, miles and miles, to hear Jesus and they were faint with hunger at the end of the day. So he performed the miracle so that the Bible would not record "and thousands of people suffered low blood sugar and little children cried with hunger and where is a Samaritan when you need one."

Don't believe it you want, that's fine with me. But don't be a willful dummy at a time when people are being killed for their religious beliefs. It's not funny and it's not nice.