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Oral Roberts, carnival hustler of improbable rewards and impossible punishments not just in the afterlife, but right here in the life we can all see and experience, in front of anyone with a ticket to the show or a television set, is finally dead at the ripe old age of 91. Good riddance.

The now-decomposing shaman was widely credited with being a trendsetter, the first real televangelist that ramped up the showmanship, with the healing, laying on of hands, and all of the drama that’s now part-and-parcel of religion-for-TV scams.  I don’t think that he ever spoke in tongues or handled snakes; he probably did a cost-analysis on those activities and there just wasn’t enough margin for those risk-reward scenarios.

He did come up with one of the Top 10 scams of the 20th century, though, because he’s also the guy that, back in 1987, told his congregation that God spoke to him, and told him personally, that if his viewers did not send in $8 million, that the Lord would call him home, that the Almighty would kill him.  I’ll be goddamned if that just didn’t work.  It’s almost as though good ol’ Oral was halfway through a bottle of Wild Turkey and said to himself, “what WON’T these fucking suckers eat up?”  Kind of like McDonald’s probably did when they came out with the Shamrock Shake and McRib sandwich (sorry Sam).  Sure as shit through an anemic Bolivian, his viewers came through with 8 big ones.

So, now he’s dead!  91 years this guy got to live.  Did he die of natural causes, or did the Almighty Christian God have a formula for allowing Oral another 22 years?  8 million, divided by 22…or maybe Oral lied about actually raising the dough, and God somehow got busy with locust infestations, famines, and tsunamis and whatnot, and forgot to grease Oral Roberts back in ‘87?  I mean, to God Almighty, 22 years ain’t but half a heartbeat, right?  All it takes is fumbling around with the stylus on the Great Celestial PalmPilot, trying to check Oral off, and he’s around ’till ‘09.  Is that scenario any more ridiculous?

Yes, yes, anyone that asks people for money in God’s proxy is stealing or scamming, whether they’re cognizant of it or not.  Of course, going through as much trouble as the televangelists do, they’re just as culpable as the thug that walks into a check cashing establishment with a sawed-off Remington 12 gauge.  In fact, they are far worse.  They not only know that they are stealing, but they’ve set up this huge bureaucracy within their religion…which in itself is nothing but a bureaucracy for bureaucracy’s sake, so they’re amongst the greatest of schemers.

Further to that, these clowns have gotten themselves set up to where they don’t even have to offer a product.  It’s the ultimate Ponzi scheme, bigger and more sophisticated than Bernie Madoff.  You pay now, through the nose, at a clip that God himself established of 10%, for a product (well, real estate, I suppose) that you can’t see now, and that you won’t see until after you are dead.  Kind of like Social Security.  Better yet, these religious guys have it set up so that they don’t have to even pay taxes…talk about God’s Perfect Plan!  That’s the first evidence I’ve ever seen of any sort of providential perfection.  What a sweet deal!

These guys are actually far, far worse than Bernie Madoff.  Bernie Madoff was a thief that ruined many a family, financially.  However, he picked on rich people that wanted to get richer.  There is nothing wrong with being wealthy, and wanting to accumulate more wealth, but it paints a contrast with what these blood-sucking scumbag preachers do.  These vampire evangelists pick on the people that usually can least afford to give away their money; the elderly, the infirmed, the sick folks that have no hope in this life, and a great deal of people that are simply unequipped to take care of themselves.  These human viruses, these Gucci-wearing chupacabres victimized people that have already been victimized by circumstance, and squeeze every last dime they can from them.

It almost makes me wish that there were a hell for them to go to.

These guys always make me think of my dead grandmother, Baba Florence.  “Baba” is the Macedonian word for “grandma,” so that’s what we called her.  She was the toughest person that I’ve ever known.  She died at the age of 58, when I was 13, of respiratory illness, and missed out on a lot of great years.  We missed out on more than she did; she was that awesome.  Baba Florence was incredibly generous, loved her kids and grandchildren fiercely, and only ever said anything bad about a person because cared about that individual, and wanted them to better themselves.  The older I get, the more I miss her.

Her illness was a long, degenerative one, so she was prime territory, good hunting for the televangelists.  Thing is,  she did not believe a word of what religion had to offer.  I remember her being asked about what kind of service she’d want, what kind of religious arrangement would work for her.  She replied flat out, “None of it.  I can’t believe any of that.  Doesn’t make a bit of sense.”  Being a person that was suffering so long for no good reason, I’m guessing she might have thought things out pretty thoroughly, and she utterly rejected the idea of the perfect plan, the omniscience of the christian god, and so on, and so forth.  To her, no, I guess it didn’t make any sense at all.

Thereby, according to a lot of religious people I know, she’s burning in hell, for all eternity, with monsters like Adolph Hitler and John Wayne Gacy.

Thereby, if you buy into that line of thinking, and believe that Baba Florence is in Hell, allow me to say, in the strongest possible terms, “Fuck you.”

I’ll be pleased to repeat that story and sentiment many times over, for as long as I’m alive.  And I’ll do so using such coarse language, as that way of thinking, eternal condemnation for such a dear person, just because she disagreed with a certain religion’s viewpoint (which has only been around for about a minute or so), deserves no more and no less.

You needn’t be offended, though.  It’s the idea that I condemn, not the person offering it.  That’s dependent, of course, on how tight you and I are, and I offer the above anecdote about my dear grandmother in order to provide some perspective.

Anyhow, there’s a Christian I know very well, a person to whom I have a sense of loyalty (though he doesn’t really rate it), who is the type of Christian that’s what I call a rubber-stamper.  By that I mean he knows the Bible, studies it several times per day, has run youth-groups and hosts bible studies, but he’s the sort that thinks that if you say the magic words, asking Jesus to forgive you, then not only does it not matter what you have done to that point, but then you can do whatever you like after that.  It’s weapons-free with lies and your cock, wrecking relationships and breaking covenants, as long as you come to Jesus at the end of the day, and confess.  Another great deal, if you ask me, but that’s another story for another time.  Bring up these televangelists to him (and the subject does come up, as he definitely reminds you of one of them), and he actually has the audacity to agree that, yes, those men are liars and serpents, but they sure have brought a lot of people to the Lord, and that the Lord certainly does work in mysterious ways, using these charlatans to save souls.

I nearly swallowed my fucking tongue.  Isn’t this the same Creator that’s responsible for the billions of galaxies, atomic fire, and the miracle of DNA?  But to get his point across, he has to employ these TeleThugs?  This man honestly believes this.  It never ceases to amaze, the backflips and contortions that religious folks have to perform in order to make their worldview line up with how things actually are.

I’m not a Star Trek fan, but whenever I think about God’s cash flow problems, I always think of that one Star Trek movie where this vaguely priest-like character leads the Enterprise to this far off world, where God supposedly lives.  God has summoned this priest, and Kirk, and Spock there because, of all things, He needs a ride, and wants to commandeer the Enterprise in order to get off the moon-like planet on which he was living.  It was a Holy Mission, and everyone was filled with wonder, until, during the climactic scene, something occurs to Kirk, and in classic Shatner hackery, he exclaims “Excuse…me…but!…what!…does God?…want!…with a spaceship?”  Of course, the God-alien goes gangsta with lightning bolts, and kills the priest guy, and the crew of the Enterprise barely escapes, which is typical of Old Testament God behavior, except for the OT God was a whole lot better at murdering and genocide, and likely would have gotten the whole lot of them.

“Excuse…me…but!…what!…does God?…want!…with money!”