'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds'

What the hell is wrong with us?

Well . . . glad you asked.

I think J. Robert Oppenheimer didn't know how right he was almost 62 years ago, when he opened his mouth after the first atomic bomb blew its top in Alamogordo, N.M. Gazing upon the fireball and the mushroom cloud, Oppenheimer remembered a quote from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita:

Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.

Today in the United States -- indeed, across most of what once was Christendom -- we have "become death, the destroyer of worlds." And that's without having set of a nuke in anger since 1945, though that well may change presently.

No, we kill babies in the womb. In our cities, we slaughter one another like market cattle. On our television and radio shows, and in our movies, we murder the human spirit and debase the human soul on a depressingly regular basis -- "reality TV" is one big freak show, and it has been for years.

Did I mention that a radio station in Sacramento, Calif., actually killed a contestant in one of its twisted contests?

According to the Talmud, the books of ancient rabbinical commentary on Jewish scripture:

"Therefore man was created on his own, to teach you that whoever destroys one soul is regarded by the Torah as if he had destroyed a whole world and whoever saves one soul, is regarded as if he had saved a whole world.

(Mishna Sanhedrin 37a)

WHAT DOES THAT SAY about us moderns, aborting and debasing and murdering right here in the USA? Or (to bring this around to the topic of the day) what does this Talmudic insight say about Chicago Bears fans who would taunt New Orleans fans about the destruction of their city during Hurricane Katrina in 2005?

What does it say about someone who, in the name of a flippin' FOOTBALL GAME, would ask a Saints fan whether he lived in New Orleans, then comment "'Well, too bad you didn't drown"?

What kind of human being -- to use the term loosely -- wishes a complete stranger dead to his face? Over a football game.

What kind of a country do we live in? What kind of society have we created? This kind of behavior -- at Soldier Field, or (to be entirely fair) among drunken LSU football fans throwing beer bottles and cursing Tennessee faithful in September 2005 -- doesn't come out of nowhere.

Again, what the hell is wrong with us?

Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.

And, mark my words, we are reaping what we have sown. And we will continue to reap that bitter harvest in spades.

(To see the WGNO video, click on the pictures.)