Friday, March 04, 2005

Take my car, please....

Cognitive dissonance is not dead; but it isn't feeling well, either.

Seen on a car this afternoon: two bumperstickers. On one side: a 55 mile an hour speed limit sign, with a red circle and line crossing diagonally, superimposed on it, and the legend: "No speed limit for the Rapture." On the other side, in bright, colorful letters: "Smile! Jesus Loves You!"

But not, apparently, enough to save you from the Tribulation that will follow the Rapture, when billions will be slaughtered, and the streets will run red with blood. Or from the eternal torments of hell that will come after that, all because you may not be a believer, or the right kind of believer.

None of which I believe, of course. The "Rapture," indeed, all of the "end times" prophecies beloved of certain groups, are matters of the most unfounded interpretation. People accept it as "Biblical" because they are told to; not because they've read the last book of the New Testament and found any of those ideas there, themselves.

Those bumperstickers were evidence of the complete lack of consideration people can give to what they say, and to what they believe. No doubt whoever put those stickers on that car held both opinions at once: that they would be spared the "Tribulation" that all non-believers will have to suffer (this is the primary story of the popular "Left Behind" series), and that Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.

Never bothering, of course, to reconcile those two absolutely contrary and contradictory ideas about the nature of their God.

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