3 AM

Man, I got nothing tonight, what has been happening, more Russia crap, more of the usual reversals of environmental and consumer protections, privacy stuff, HB2 is getting overturned in North Carolina it looks like, seems the Republicans there are feeling the pinch of impending boycotts so that's something, I mean it would be better if they had gained a moral compass but I guess we will take what we can get.

There we go, morals, what a strange concept, well not really I guess, we couldn't have a functioning society if we didn't have at least a few agreed upon rules about what is and what is not acceptable. The word always seems to have a religious connotation which I find irritating though, I like to think of myself as a pretty moral fellow, kind, or at least tolerant of others, nonviolent, and so on. But according to some I am one bad day away from a murder spree or something, it's pretty weird, I mean I guess it is possible that I just go insane some day and get all murdery, but nothing about my belief system, or lack thereof, would encourage it.

If I recall right, one of my now deceased grandparents maintained that he would have done terrible things if it wasn't for his religion, that seems kind of upsetting, are there truly so many people out there on a hair trigger that are only held back because Jesus said so? And they are proud of it! They revel in the fact that they would do awful things to people, or did awful things before they found god.

It's part of this freaky redemption narrative that many evangelicals have I think, to them, they are the hero of their story, which is fair I guess, we are all the most important person to ourselves usually, but their story is always about redemption, or being found after being lost, and the thing about that is you need to be lost first, or to have something that needs redeeming. Even if you maybe never did anything all that bad in the first place.

During the 2016 campaign, Ben Carson came under investigation for a couple stories in his books where he told about how, before he found god of course, he attempted to attack a friend of his, and his mother, on a couple separate occasions for reasons that are unclear and I can't be bothered to look up. The problem is that no one can confirm these reports, which actually is true for a lot of the details in his books and speeches, making this possibly the first time an educated black man took flak for possibly not having a violent past.
But it's part of that evangelical mindset, he is found now, so he has this narrative built of him on his own little heroes journey .

This wouldn't be so bad if these same people didn't also condemn those who don't follow their exact same path though, actually it's worse, not only would you have to follow their path, but you would have to not make the same mistakes they claimed to make in the first place, because the redemption is only for them, not you, you aren't the hero of their story, you can and will be judged and found wanting.

I am not saying religion is the problem here, these people would be creepy and weird with or without that, but I don't think it helps much either given it's influence over our society.

Anyway, I have rambled enough tonight, and my lack of sleep may have made this a pretty incomprehensible post, I shall find out tomorrow when I wake up and reread it, nevertheless it shall remain as is, a testament to my folly or insight depending on how it looks in the morning.