I keep getting a vision of the DailyKos crowd as characters in the story found in Genesis in the Hebrew Scriptures.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Who gave God the right to decide to move upon the face of the waters? I think it is time we get a firm commitment from the divine that there will be no moving upon the face of anything until the action has been vetted as part of a larger, sustainable strategic plan which has been run by all of us.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
I am so disappointed with God. We were promised creation, and all we are getting is light and darkness. And we were promised it would be unified, and now here God is dividing light and darkness. I am feeling betrayed!
Maybe we should go with Ba'al, since Ba'al always said that things should be divided, light and dark, good and evil. This God is not turning out the way I expected.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
That's it - I am out of God's camp! Now we are dividing water and firmament. Where did the pledge of unity go? I expected more out of the divine than just more of the same old dualism.
And what's with this "Heaven" talk. Clearly, a sop to the Religious Right. God, get back on the secular train where you belong before you alienate all of your humamist supporters.
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
And the evening and the morning were the third day.
I thought one of God's platform pieces was ecology. So, what's with all of this planting and using every bit of spare earth. Hey, it's been three days already, and I am not yet seeing God make the big moves for liberation and enlightened economics. I am beginning to think that maybe the void wasn't so bad after all.
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
O, no, a whole day wasted on lighting. Doesn't God know that there are things like FISA and campaign funding that should be addressed? I mean, it is like God built up all this hope and dream talk and now is just doing interior decorating.
So, God sees that it's good. Just because God does something which is good is not enough . . . God should be doing everything I want now, and not throw stars in my eyes. Get real.
And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
That's it. I have had it. We have been lied to. This God is no better than anything that went before. All this stuff with the animals, and not one mention of international treaties to protect species.
What's with this "multiply" talk? More of the same-old, same-old. I expected that we would be talking about new possibilities by now. God is just one more of the same-old gods. But, what can you expect? After all, God is deity and you know want you can expect from deities.
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Now, wait a minute. What happened to evolution? I will not vote for any God that does not support evolution. For me that is my litmus test.
Is anyone else troubled by this idea of dominion? I mean, which of us will have dominion over the rest of us? I thought this God was running on a platform of equality. But, God seems to say whatever is convenient to the day of the week.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
Whoa, we are back at the ranch at Crawford. Working six days and then quitting! Where are all the promised programs? Where are all the fixes for everything that is broken? I'm back to feeling big time betrayed. I don't get any seventh day off, not in this economy. And what about for our grandchildren, where will they be with all of these fowl and fishes multiplying? Maybe God was only one creation deep, like God's opponents said.
Ambrose Bierce, the great American wit, once said "On the seventh day, God was arrested." Unless this God gets moving ahead in the ways that were promised, I am going to look for a third party deity to support.
Folks, it seems to me that if we all had been at creation, we would have been critiquing it up and down, and in some form of spiritual panic-attack jumped immediately to assume that this God we had been waiting for, this God we had been hoping for, was not going to be our God simply because not everything was working out according to how we wanted it.
If we truly believe in the body politic, in the power of "we, the people," then we have to be willing to cast aside some of our own ego demands, our own self-definitions, and look to the bigger picture.
If we focus on Obama and his strengths or faults as the source of our coming new day, we will miss the big picture of the whole. I keep reading people who seem to think that Obama doing or not doing this or that will define the future. WE will define the future. And if we define it based on nit-picking, instant pessimism, litmus-tests of our own agendas, and demands for perfection, we will get exactly that - a future of nit-picking, pessimism, litmus-tests, personal agendas, and universal failure.
But if we define it based on acceptance, optimism, diverse possibilities, the goal of the commonweal, and acknowledgement of human fallibility, we will get exactly that - a future of openess, achievement, diversity, inclusion of all in an atmosphere of understanding and peace.
Let's not let this wonderful forum, here at DailyKos, degenerate into a cauldron of nay-sayers. Otherwise, we will be no better than the fictional critics "in the beginning."