Speaking about vacuous " religious " banality. I can hear the Rev. Joel Osteen - who makes God his partner in business - offering unctuous words of solace to survivors of this senseless massacre in " God's Country " : The beloved departed are now happy in heaven, but HIS Goodness is manifest in OUR soaring bull market.
Americans with some real spiritual depth are experiencing a seemingly eternal " dark night of the soul ".
To be sure , empty consumerism and mass media nihilism -and the cynical New McCarthyism - are not on a higher " spiritual " level than TV evangelism and its Elmer Gantry caliber " Gospel of Wealth & Success ".
If " pure evil " has any earthly roots, it must be the circumscribed human EGO created by centuries of institutionalized PRIVATE PROPERTY selfishness. Orwell's " Money God ".
The WE will emerge again in a socialist society. In the present it seems that the French existentialist philosopher Sartre had a point : " Hell is other people "--- for a world of ageless two year olds .
Let us not too quickly dismiss a " benevolent Higher Power " . AA propaganda still insists that it cures THE HABIT .
[ In a 2012 interview with Oprah Winfrey, when asked if he ever “makes any apologies” for his wealth, Osteen replied, “I really don’t, Oprah. We just feel like this is God’s blessings. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a nice place to live and being blessed.”]
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