Speaking of invasions …

Ever since I got close to retirement age, I have been inundated with marketing for social security and Medicare. I thought I’d gotten a reprieve when it was announced that the closing date was that December – but they lied. It never ended, and still haunts me today.

There’s also the many invasive calls that everybody gets about insurance (home, auto, final expense). I don’t own a home or auto, and my personal insurance is handled. Why do these entities feel entitled to bothering people? Maybe because technology generates a list of potentials based on age, sex, and race. And, of course, when you search for anything at all (like cereal or toilet paper or the cost of a screwdriver) you will receive automatically in every format possible advertisements for those same things.

And now that this election is coming up and they don’t think the commercials are enough ad nauseum, I started getting texts on my phone about candidates and their rhetoric. This is something new. I already block about 100 calls a week for the other garbage, now I have to do the same for this.

But the prize of all came earlier this week. I got a call from someone wishing to discuss the Bible. What, now they do Telestudy? I guess it’s easier than Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons getting the door slammed in their faces. I don’t think I’ll be hearing from them again, though, because my response should have discouraged anything further.

But to think it’s okay to do all these things is mind blowing. It made me think about religion, though, and why I really don’t believe in it. I do believe in God, I just don’t believe in man, and religion is man-made. It has conditions and rules and regulations – all of which limit in accordance with whoever the author or initiator of the religion is. My main reason for not believing, however, is more than the hypocrisy of its followers; it’s because of how the beginning is described in Genesis.

One assignment of man was to have dominion over the animals and everything. I look at that word “dominion” and think it is another man-made interpretation that gives license to rule. If Christians, for example, believe in Christ, they know that he was not someone seeking to rule. He was a shepherd looking out for his flock. That is a distinction that people seem to choose to overlook. A true Christian is supposed to practice shepherding and stewardship, not seek dominion. The first means that they are respecting as well as protecting, the latter that they are just taking over and taking.

Man has abused this planet with their invasiveness, to the point that the life sources we have been given – and even our own bodies which we were blessed with – have been exploited beyond repair.

I’m doing a revised outro for this post from one of my favorite songs (Queen of Soul’s version): Don’t trouble the waters … because … still water runs deep … so … why don’t you, why don’t you let it be …