Tao of the Ninja Mennonite: V

Well, it's time someone point out the fact that Mitt Romney is the Antichrist, after all. I mean he really is.

The conversation kinda came up over on the forum(yup, that's the right link, you'll need to roll through it) where the various virtues or lack of our current system, culture, all that were discussed a bit. And the fact that Mitt Romney is the Antichrist has only a bit to do with his fetish for holy underwear, believing God is an alien from Kochab, that he gets not only 70 virgins upon his transmigration but a whole fucking planet to rule--calling his wife from her tomb is purely optional, however-all that horseshit. It has only a bit to do with Mormonism in general, although it's ideal as an unique American kind of religion-- a cross between the weakest feel good version of Christianity, homeopathy, and multi-level marketing. Nah, demonstrating that he's the Antichrist comes down to a very simple observation.

See, the whole Christian tradition--back in the day, was largely a reactionary one against the heavy legalistic nature of Judaism-- and rather than a whole book of rules or books of rules and castes of privileged interpreters of the rules was posited a very simple set of  principles:

1) God has a plan and a "will" to be expressed in Creation.

2) It is man's proper role to fulfill that "will." To choose against God's will is, frankly the definition of a sin.

3) The messianic message was one of demonstrating the Christ-manner of fulfilling God's will. It is, in fact a lifestyle of attempting strive for that fulfillment, which is always the greatest, most important systemic "good"--and in fact often requires personal sacrifice for that "greatest good."  And of course that stunt on the cross a pretty good example of all that, in fact.

3a) For those whose eyes are glazing over already-- hey, I said "GREATER GOOD." The "Christian" lifestyle was one of deliberately manifesting "god's will" by seeking that "greater good."  As if God's will could be anything other than the greater good, right?

3b) And hey, sometimes the "personal good" has to give a bit to serve that greater good, right? Sometimes it's nice to share.

3c) Of course--to deliberately, systemically seek the "personal good" over the greater good of "god's will" is core to the "Christian" definition of evil.

Now you sure as hell wouldn't know this looking at the modern church-- which is pretty damned evil--but from this perspective it's pretty easy to see where early Christian traditions of aiding the poor, vows of poverty, communal-ism came from. And it's also easy to see where tasty biblical zingers like "it's more difficult for a camel to crawl through the eye of a needle than a rich man enter the kingdom of heaven"-- as well, it's pretty tough to amass a big pile of dough seeking the "greater systemic good"(read: utterly impossible.) Or, of course "give on to Caesar what is Caesar's and God what is God's" which, certainly, translates to "Caesar can kiss my ass." There's more; lots more. In fact the whole New Testament is loaded with that kind of stuff and in fact very sparse about telling people what to do with their weenies-- ah, but that's another topic.

So now the Antichrist stuff:  Back in my Bible School days it was often impressed on me by scholars who had some understanding of translation that the "anti" part of "Antichrist" wasn't a very fitting translation, as it suggest an almost Zoroastrian god vs. devil slapdown kind of confrontational character. Not at all, many insisted-- and it would be much more accurately translated as "instead-of" rather than "anti." And indeed, the "Instead-of-Christ" has a very important connotative difference, and in many ways more insidious. And what would that Anti/Instead-of-Christ stand for? Well, of course against or at least as an alternative the the Christ message-- again, man's role is to personally fulfill god's will by aiding all creation find its teleological expression of the greatest good-- the alternative probably would be something very much like "seek the personal good and fuck everyone else." Now let's not be to silly about seeing how this all works out-- as very often such a person wants to fuck over other people and feel good about it(personal good)--even self-righteous and entitled about it-- so it's very nice to wrap the whole thing up in some pseudo-bible-babble where once can pretend to believe that it's actually God's will to give you a whole pile of toys and other people nothing and that's ok because it's in God's plan for some people to go hungry. Never can know god's will really-- pass the steak sauce? Sure, all that sounds very silly and self serving phrased that way-- but hey, that's what makes the modern church go round--sermons based on that kind of language caters to a crowd who can offer up way better tithes that them "smelly serve poor kinds."

So how does this in fact make Mitt Romney the Antichrist? Because I suggest to you that he's taken the "all about me" alternative anti-christ message further, more indulgently, more profoundly, and more successfully than any human being in human history--and if he wins the presidency, he'll effectively taken the "antichrist" gospel to the highest level of success and power possible on planet earth! -- and if that doesn't in fact make him "the man!" I really don't know what rates. And that is, in fact, a little freaky. 

Especially because ol Captain Holy Underwear believes in a literal apocalyptic battle and has the power to initiate it in his hands.