THE COSMIC LOSERS

It sucks to be a loser! No way around it!

The Russians were so confident this was going to be their year to reclaim Olympic gold in hockey. They got thoroughly trounced by little Finland! How humiliating!

I can only speculate how thorough and painful the dressing downs have been from Putin and company. But, I got to thinking as I was chopping down some early spring grass with my old dependable Weedeater, how much more humiliating it must be to be so confidently sure that your god and your particular little schism of that god's following is the one and only true way and the only way that guarantees heaven when you finally realize that it just can't be so. I know it was for me. I was shaken from the top of my six-foot-six stature to the soles of my size 13 feet!

Muslims believe everybody except them are heretics and bound for damnation. Christians are absolutely sure of the same thing, and many of them are absolutely confident that anyone who doesn't follow their particular little denomination or sect are irretrievably lost unless they can somehow be converted. Sorry about that, they think, but my God won't be mocked, and you're going to fry -- even if I was too selfish to give more to send that missionary your way.

Hell has to be filled beyond capacity by now if all those fearful doctrines are true, and I think I have a better chance of winning the Powerball tonight with my one little ticket than anyone has of making it to heaven if all those condemnatory pronouncements are true.

I know. Deep down, most people don't really think that's true, especially about warring divisions within their own basic religion, but they're quick, if they're christians, to consign any member of "healthen" religions, (hindus, taoists, etc.) to that eternal bonfire.

Think about it. If you really believe that crap, you have about one in a gazillion chance of making it into paradise so you can sit in boring idleness and play a harp for eternity while gazing in rapture at your mind-boggling omnipotence of a "loving" god.