Walmart bookstore

First time I noticed Walmart had a bookstore kiosk in Lynchburg , VA. (BTW, that is a terrible name for a city, no matter how proud of their slavery history they may be. Its like naming a place in Japan A-bombville, or Pogromton in Poland, or Scalpburg, New Gaschamber. OK, so maybe it was founded by a man named Lynch, so what? They can change stadium names to Pepsi-Cola, they can fix this city name too. Pepsiburg. I like that. Makes me want to drink a refreshing carbonated soft drink. Not wear my bedsheet around carrying a torch.)

Guess what they sold? Yep, bibles. And... religious apparel.

"Jesus is my lifeguard" was my favorite. C'mon that's clever. Dude walks on water! They can't teach you that in lifeguard training. Best skill to put on your resume.

The "god's got this" and "blessed and saved" attitudes pissed me off. It's like, 'I don't got to do nothin' but believe in the lord and everything will be taken care of for me.' A simpleton's bragging rights. 

And the blessed attitude reeks of feeling special privilege for doing nothing at all. A childish mindset where winning games of pure chance like the shoots and ladders or the lottery are indicative of one's specialness. 

The actual bargain is more like: become a powerless puppet to a powerful organization and the organization exerts power through you. If you get excommunicated for not falling in line, you are helpless. Like how a cult breaks its initiates individuality and self sufficiency, then the cultists feel power and love through the leader. The scariest thing for a victim of the cult is to be cut off from the cult, since he gave up all his ability to live on his own or deal with the outside world. 

Individually, the victim loses all power. But as long as he serves as a conduit, he feels as if the cult grants him tremendous ability and life. He is tapping into the collective of all the members surrendered power. But his heightened power is only possible at the sacrifice of the many puppet cultists. Not everyone can be promoted. So this temporary lease on the collective power is granted to seduce initiate to join or carry out tasks decided by the leader.

The armor attitude is also backward, because rarely is armor used to prevent violence. It is worn by those seeking to inflict violence. Nobody wears armor who isn't also wielding a weapon. Armor is "I hit you, you can't hit me back", not "put down your arms, let's sit and talk this one through". Same thing the military calls it Defense spending, department of defense. There is no Offense, but that's what it should really be called. You can't run around defending yourself with shield and armor. It sounds like they're for stopping killing, but those things are used so you can kill your enemies. Using god as armor is euphemism for cutting down your enemies.

But hey, at least the bookstore had books. Religious books. The shirts were funny.