I cannot believe it never occurred to me that Jesus H. Christ was a freaking zombie. The most famous one I can think of, in fact! No wonder I am so afraid of Christianity & it’s followers! Zombies scare the piss out of me & it never dawned on me that the celebration of Easter, of Christ’s resurrection, was actually a day of praise for the un-dead. I smell an excellent parody of Passion of the Christ here…
Aside from a brief crisis of identity suffered during my childhood, I have always identified as an atheist because I just don’t get the God thing. Frankly, I don’t think anyone else does either, because the extreme variation in theological perspectives across the globe leads me to believe that all of y’all ain’t talking about the same creator! It’s like some huge trans-generational game of Telephone, where the message comes out different depending on who you ask. A Catholic, a Southern Baptist, a Protestant Christian, an Orthodox Jew, a Quaker, and a Shia Muslim supposedly worship the same omnipresent deity, but their versions of him couldn’t be more conflicting, no? That is where several Eastern religious traditions are superior to their Western counterparts – they acknowledge the fact that differing interpretations happen & that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. During the Colonial Period when Brits, Frenchmen, the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, & other European nations where snatching up Eastern countries & shoving Christian ideology down the throats of native inhabitants, plenty of folks accepted what Western missionaries where preaching. Much to the horror of the Europeans, these folks were just accepting this Christ-dude as another incantation of Brahman or another example of Buddha’s teachings or another deity to add to their already existent pantheon of gods. Unlike most followers of Abrahamic religions, they were able to take something of value away from Christ’s teachings without forfeiting their initial religion. Jesus ain’t the only savior on the block, y’know?
Anyhow, my own spiritual journey halted abruptly around my tenth year on Earth, when I decided that the purpose of religion was control of the population &, like all other forms of authority, I was going to avoid it at all costs. I DO WHAT I WANT! That’s my life philosophy, after all. Imagine my surprise when my Eastern Religion instructor had us take this HERE belief assessment test & it defined me as a 98% Theravada Buddhist. My best guess as to why I’m considered a Buddhist by the Belief-O-Matic would be my belief that human suffering is caused by egotism, that most of our suffering is all in our heads or it’s payback pain for fucked up shit we’ve done in the past, and that a person ought to be compassionate, generous, and kind to others if they want to eventually find inner peace. If that’s all it takes to join the Buddha Team, then count me in! These mo’fos got a pretty good grip on shit. All this time, I thought I had that six-inch Buddha statue for ironic purposes. Lo’ & behold, it’s actually a testament to my religious beliefs!
Question: Universal Unitarian is just a catch all label for anyone not affiliated with any other main church, huh?
Apparently, one of my late Grandfather's signature sayings was: "Never trust a Christian". This is amusing, since I too have be known to utter similar statements & my Granddad died prior to my stint here on Earth. I was not indoctrinated with his ideology as a youngster; my Dad rarely even mentioned the guy, let alone his skepticism for Christian morality, but just as we share chromosomal traits, Me and Grandpa George share the same opinion of theologically driven folk. They cannot be trusted to approach matters logically, to divorce their reasoning from their Church’s teachings, and therefore, they ain’t the ones that we outta’ entrust the communities well being to. You see, my folks left me to figure the whole Heaven & Hell thing out on my own, without any sort of guidance on the subject, and after years of stressed out comparison studies of the religious dogma spouted by people around me, I came to the conclusion that religion is, more often than not, used as a means of controlling the populace. People, with or without theology, normally recognize certain behaviors as immoral or unacceptable (i.e. murder, cannibalism, rape). BUT, religion stipulates another set of Do’s and Don’ts that believers must adhere to, lest God punish them in the afterlife (i.e. observe the Sabbath, practice kosher eating habits, don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, etc.). Now that, my friends, is a mighty powerful means of control! If you don’t act right, you’ll pay for it even after you’re dead for all eternity! Damn, that’s harsh. Especially since you are expected to accept the Church’s interpretation of God’s mandates and regulations, instead of being able to clarify with the man himself. Belief in religious teachings is so strong that people often advocate policy & behavior that isn’t in their own best interest or is detrimental to society as a whole because their clergy says God wants them to. Most of the Christians that I know are self-identified anti-choice types, they believe that homosexual relationships are sinful, and they aren’t all that supportive of the distinction between church and state in this country. These people, & those that worship a Christian god along the same lines, propagate bullshit that fucks with the interests of our society as a whole simply because they buy into the threat of their own eternal damnation. This is not fair, not rational, and certainly not in accordance with the founding principals of this Land of the Free we inhabit. These Christian moral crusaders are the Proposition 8 supporters that feared their school-aged children might learn that homosexuals exist if marriage rights were granted to the LGBT community, but they were unconcerned with the fact that civil liberties were being stripped from their fellow citizens, who posed no threat by joining in matrimony. They are the knee jerk voters that agreed if female minors had access to safe & legal abortion services all of our sweet and innocent teenage girls would have incentive to start whoring it up wily-nilly, but they failed to recognize that parental notification and waiting period legislation results in an increase in teen pregnancy and unsafe abortion procedures. They are the people that were comfortable with President Bush’s Faith Based Initiative that allocates millions in tax dollars to organizations that identify with a Church, but they seem unaware of the fact that these monies can be put to better use by funding the necessary programs already in place to service to the community (like Federal student aid, Medi-Care, or Temporary Assistance For Needy Families, for example). I’m not suggesting that American Christians, whose ideology conflicts with my own, are Assholes without concern for the poor, needy, or minority groups amongst us, but I am suggesting that when opinions (and, as a result, our laws) are formed by religious dogma, there is plenty of common sense shit that gets overlooked & ignored. If running this country were left entirely to the Christian Right, many of us would be living in the cold, hungry, and abandoned by our society. If only the early Christian theologians thought to include a chapter & verse that would remind folks that the human capacity for critical thought should be exercised regularly! Then again, those early theologians were members of a newly established clergy class & if people thought for themselves, what would they need the clergy for? Anyhow, it is this mindset, that your clergy & it’s version of God’s will should be the basis of all your beliefs, that makes people like myself & my grandfather so weary of Christian motives. Can you really blame us?
Along the same sting of thought, all God-oriented & what-not, here are a few entertaining clips via YouTube.
"The Creator actually smote me in advance for blaspheming his son!"
Was there ever any doubt that FUNK was divinely inspired? Satan definety had a hand in the creation of disco though.
I’m not advocating taking Jesus out with a bus, but this video cracked me up the first time I saw it & I figured you might have a similar experience.
That’s some truth told in that song! They threw Jesus out of the Christian Coalition, They said you might share our name but you sure don’t share our vision!
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