The God Who Loves to Hate

A Goddess of Compassion or...

a God of Extreme Vengeance - Your Pick

The Tsunami - Wrath of God

Katrina - The Opposite of Mercy ?

Yes, I'm taking advantage of the Chinese celebration of the birthday of Quan Yen, the Goddess of Mercy and Compassion. Too many people today seem to savor hatred - in themselves and in God: John McCain's now happy to curry favor with people he once called "agents of intolerance." Preachers like - alright I won't name them, I'm not that much into redundancy, so just look at my last 100 posts - love the "bully pulpit". "I knew my God was stronger than his"* has captured half the country. The Christ of Love is out, the Christ of War and Pitiless Retribution is IN. Oh, Joel Osteen will tell you differently: God really WANTS you to have that new SUV (or that pain-free appendix), but that's a God of greed and self-preservation and no one's yet been able to capture that God in all His glow-in-the-dark magnificance for the dashboard of your car. The Rapture and Armageddon are gleefully anticipated by millions of self-righteous sadists.

Isn't it (just a bit) against human survival to fear and adore a God who hates you so much? I was going to present you with an interview of Shirley Phelps-Roper of "God Hates America" fame, but I ran into this clip. It's more than a typical "God Hates Fags" balladeer because this guy so keenly enjoys singing it! He's enRaptured (sorry) about it and I' sure that he pleasures himself with visions of people writhing in the flames of hell.



On the other side of the coin, stories of the Chinese Goddess Quan Yen bear a remarkable likeness to attributes ascribed to Jesus: "She began her journey to heaven and was about to cross over into heaven when she heard a cry of suffering from the world below. She turned around and saw the massive suffering endured by the people of the world. Filled with compassion, she returned to earth, vowing never to leave till such time as all suffering has ended."

So you might say that when faced with a canundrum involving compassion, we might ask ourselves WWQYD - What Would Quan Yin Do?

Again, your pick: God or Goddess?