Huffington Post
Cenk Uygur
25% of the Country is Certifiably Insane
The Associated Press and AOL recently did a year end poll where they asked people to make predictions on 2007. There were some interesting findings, like the fact that there are more Americans who think that the draft will be reinstated next year (35%) than those who think we will withdraw our forces from Iraq (29%).
There are also numbers that showed how well the public is attuned to the current political and economic climate, with eighty percent predicting an increase in the minimum wage and ninety percent predicting higher gas prices.
But there is one number that stands out among the rest as absolutely unbelievable. Twenty-five percent of Americans believe that Jesus Christ will return to earth in 2007. TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT! IN 2007!
These people are nuts. There's no polite way of saying it. If I sound superior, too bad. Sanity has its advantages.
If some of the famed cultural warriors of the right want to take me on and defend their cherished Christian cohorts, step on up. I'll take every one of them on and win very, very easily.
Here's my plan for victory - wait till 2008. When Jesus doesn't come - again, for the 2,007th time - I will be proven right. Will the people who believed he was coming in 2007 change their minds? Of course not. They'll just say he's coming in 2008. And on and on it goes.
He isn't coming! I will make any wager, pay any price and do any act that anyone demands of me if I am proven wrong. Here it is, a simple challenge: Name your price, in money, actions, deeds or words - and I will pay it if I am wrong. If Jesus comes in 2007, you win. If he doesn't, I win.
I am not going to ask that any of the believers wager anything in return. I am not going to do a Terrell Owens like celebration when I win. I am not going to ask for my pound of flesh. The only thing I ask for when the cultural warriors of the right lose this bet is that they look into counseling.
You people are seriously disturbed. You think a magic man is going to appear out of the sky and grant you eternal bliss. If the man's name was anything other than Jesus, that belief would get you locked up as a psychotic. And the fact that you have given him this magic name and decided to call him your Lord doesn't make it any more sane.
Imagine for a second if instead of Jesus, some psycho was waiting for a magical creature named Fred to come save him this year and suck him up into the sky. Now, who doesn't think that man needs serious counseling and perhaps medical supervision? Now, you change Fred into Jesus, and you have 25% of the country.
Sometimes the world scares me. It is full of psychotics who go around pretending to be rational human beings. You think that's offensive, then prove me wrong. I dare you. Show me Jesus in 2007 and I'll do whatever you demand of me.