Decapitation

NOTICE – EXTREME TRIGGER WARNING!  If you are of the temperament that needs a ‘safe space’ on your campus to retreat after any verbal altercation that involves disagreement and have adult coloring books at your disposal while cuddling stuffed animals (or dolls, if you are a PETA proponent and can’t stand the subjugation of animals to be depicted as child’s playthings) then this is not the post for you and extreme caution is advised in proceeding.  Now that that’s out of the way and most everyone else is reading on with increased eagerness, let’s get to the real meat of it.  Fantasyland is a world that is East of Eden and yet has no suffering or evil – and by virtue, does not exist.  Like flat-earthers denying the elliptical spheroid shape of Earth (by the way, as far back as the Greek empire people knew just from observation that the earth was round – the shape of the shadow cast on the moon during lunar eclipses is round; the first thing visible over the horizon of approaching ships is the tip of the mast indicating the curvature of the earth, and many other factors demonstrate this), those who deny the suffering and evil in the world would be ignoring blatantly obvious facts.  To be privy to a certain form of this (and this is not for children, weak stomachs, or weak hearts) simply Google images of the word “decapitation”.  This has been a favorite form of execution throughout history, usually public, to instill fear and demonstrate absolute finality and subjugation of the beheaded.  The French Revolution led to the phrase that indicates the next step after decapitation, particularly via the mechanism of a guillotine, that is, “heads will roll.”  Jonah, the one the Old Testament describes, had a particular affinity for not going to Nineveh; history tells us Nineveh’s gates were lined with the heads of, well, the beheaded whether prisoners of war, convicts, or failed proto-gladiators, and even some ‘innocents’ just for show, all atop fence posts, spears or spikes to display their evident brutality to visitors.  I’m afraid my sentiments would have been with Jonah on this one and the belly of sea creature would seem like a comforting and safe alternative.  Drug cartels have a certain way of executing this particular form of execution that may or may not involve chainsaws.  In Jodie Foster’s “Anna and the King”, a character is beheaded with a sword in a fashion that almost resembles a ceremonial dance, consistent with historical documents of the time.  John the Baptist had his carotids, jugulars, esophagus, spine, trachea and the rest delicately placed on a platter of precious metal…main idea, this is not something that is removed from reality, history or even Scripture – or even present-day news.  The Coptic Christians on the beaches of Libya are only the tip of the iceberg.  Many others like this happen without news cameras and messages to the world.  So, why a grotesque verbal display of a repugnant reality…just for that reason, it is a reality!  Also, it is better to mitigate situations when they are a mole hill and not mountains; better to step on an ember when it is just an ember and not a raging forest fire and the helicopters with water bags have to be brought in.   Like prophylactic antibiotics preventing the spread of a disease before it ever starts, I am thankful for apologists who are preventing more of the spread of this type of atrocity than they know by standing against an ideology that would condone and promote such actions!