End times, summer camp, and a bit of 9-11 (Lileks)

[Abdul Alhazred]

It was 1968. On the night before the last day of camp, a counselor
named Charlie Brown interrupted our sunset meeting by the shores of
White Bear Lake to tell us the news: Russia had launched their missiles
and they would destroy America before the night was out. It was time
to get right with God.

Silence; crickets; small sobs. I’m sure no one thought much about
Jesus right then. We thought about Mom and Dad and Spot and our
room, where we really, really wanted to be right now, with the familiar
smell of the goldfish bowl, and -

Charlie Brown guided us through some prayers. We all said Amen, and
I’m sure for some it was the least heartfelt Amen we’d ever said. Then
Charlie Brown said he had made up the story. Russia hadn’t launched
the missiles. But what if they had? Were we right with Jesus?

Back at the barracks we were quiet and unnerved. No one wanted to go
to sleep. No one wanted to talk, either. Finally John Larson, the
bunkhouse bully, broke the silence. He was the mean kid. He was the
one who tormented me at home, and had bothered me at camp. Nelson
Muntz without the charm. John Larson expressed his simple wish to
stab Charlie Brown in the stomach.

A dozen little Lutheran campers nodded in the dark: ya sure, you
betcha.


Lileks at his best. Read the whole thing here. (http://www.lileks.com/bleats/archive/03/0903/091103.html)

He really nails it, don't you think?

[kourama]

Are we trading glurge (see snopes) christian stories?

A Xtian preached at me once, and asked me if I knew what a Christian was.

I said "yes, A christian is someone who believes in christ".

"Wrong!", he said, "A Christian is someone who knows Him!"

And smiled a self-satisfied grin. The same kind of grin my baby brother gave me when he once asked:

"You know what?"

and I asked "What?"

and he said "Chicken Butt!"

ugh.

[Andonyx]

Originally posted by Abdul Alhazred


He really nails it, don't you think?

No...not in the slightest....did you read the whole thing?


Two years later I take a certain grim comfort in some people’s disinterest in the war; if you’d told me two years ago that people would be piling on the President and bitching about slow progress in Iraq, I would have known in a second that the nation hadn’t suffered another attack. When the precise location of Madonna’s tongue is big news, you can bet the hospitals aren’t full of smallpox victims. Of course some people are impatient with those who still recall the shock of 9/11; the same people were crowding the message boards of internet sites on the afternoon of the attacks, eager to blame everyone but the hijackers. They hate this nation. In their hearts, they hate humanity. They would rather cheer the perfect devils than come to the aid of a compromised angel. They can talk for hours about how wrong it was to kill babies, busboys, businessmen, receptionists, janitors, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers - and then they lean towards you, eyes wide, and they say the fatal word: but.



The man seems to rail against the war all at once, and then he makes his own "but."

He does turn it into a black and white issue, he does turn it into an us or them conflict and in so doing maybe he feels better because it's more like his "old Wars" that for whatever reason he finds so much easier to digest.

Here's another person angry about the conflict and then let's his emotion find reasons to hate anyone else with a different or more complicated point of view.