Religious "rant": I can do without all the cute, catchy words of wisdom people post on teh social medias. Namely, all those who put the slant on the whole pandemic thing as something sent by God, so that we're forced to take a break from the every day rat race and now have the time to focus on Him. Maybe you mean well. I get it. But think about the fact that what you're basically saying is the God you worship is killing off thousands and thousands of people and making hundreds of thousands suffer just so we'll pray more. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Gonna have to agree with you here.
Guy that I've been friends with for years. Great guy, think the world of him. He started this morning by quoting Revelations to me. Something about the seven seals.
I believe in God. I believe in Jesus and the resurrection. I believe in divine healing.
I don't believe Peter Popoff's vials of water can cure anything. I don't believe Joel Osteen completely. I don't believe in people like Swaggart and Baker and Jim Jones and Earnest Angley who invoke the name of God to fleece people or to elevate themselves.
And I don't know what I think about Revelations. I'm curious. I've read the Talmud. I've studied Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism. I've read The Koran. There are a lot of things in all of that which are universal. But when it gets into one person's "vision" and that vision isn't specific (see Nostradamus, for instance) there are always people looking to adapt whatever is happening to what they want it to be. I also need to know the state of mind of the person who is having those visions.
Take the Koran, for instance. Mohammed had the visions and conversations that led to his first "revelation" after almost a month of self isolation, sleep-deprivation and starvation inside a cave. I can't put my trust in that. I've seen some weird stuff when I was just a little tired. I once slammed on the brakes and slid to a sideways stop to avoid a naked gnome that was about to run out in the road when I was driving back from a concert one night. Turned out it was actually a fire hydrant.
Is what's happening now the end times? I tend to think not. I'd have been more inclined to believe that during the black plague. It was exponentially worse. So was polio.
Also:
While I appreciate the efforts of everybody out there working, the self-congratulatory "I have to go to work, I'm a NURSE (therapist, dog groomer, whatever) badges people are sticking on themselves grate on my last nerve.