If Your Religion Teaches You To Hate, You're Doing It Wrong

Jesus loves you...AND he takes VISA and Mastercard

(quotes attributed to George Carlin, 1937-2008)

Religion easily has the best bullshit story of all time. Think about it. Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky, who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever to suffer and burn and scream until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you and he needs money.

I have no beef with religion. I’ve just chosen to opt out of that pointless madness. Call me arrogant if you must, but I fail to see any sense in believing in and committing my life to something/someone I can’t see or experience. Religion- in particular, American Christianity- is merely a lazy way to cede control over one’s life to an unseen force.

Thus, when something goes wrong, or things don’t turn out the way you want, you can claim that it wasn’t “God’s will.” When you no longer accept responsibility for your own life, and when you can pass off adverse events on an unseen supernatural force, life becomes much simpler.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t make life any easier or more tolerable.

If God had intended us to masturbate, he would’ve made our arms shorter.

What Right-wing pastors like Kent Christmas (if that’s actually his real name) tell their followers that “the laws of God” supersede the laws of man, they leave out one essential point.

“The laws of God” were transcribed into the Bible by men, some of whom were motivated by their own personal prejudices and agenda. Therefore, to believe that the Bible is the literal and inerrant Word of God is to completely ignore the many hands that transcribed it over hundreds of years and in several different languages.

The “Word of God” is, in fact, the product of mere mortals who have transcribed, translated, and re-translated teachings that were passed and re-passed, often verbally, from person to person over many, many years. Thus, there’s nothing “literal” or “inerrant” about it. To believe otherwise is to willfully ignore the history of the book they knowingly misinterpret.

Religion is like a pair of shoes. Find one that fits for you, but don’t make me wear your shoes.

There is nothing in the Bible that condones the rejection of vaccine mandates or COVID-19 restrictions. But, sadly, there are many so-called “Christians” who’ve bastardized their faith to win influence and followers as they line their pockets.

Their misguided and dishonest twisting of Biblical teachings only confirms that American Christianity is less about faith than a for-profit business.

God loves you…but he needs money. And he wants you to give it to him.

Those who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music.

That there are those instructing the gullible and the easily manipulated to shun the COVID-19 vaccines because “their faith in Jesus Christ will protect them” is unconscionable.

What so-called “Christians” like Christmas fail to acknowledge is that if their God exists, he would be looking after them. They’d recognize that science isn’t anti-Christian…far from it. Science seeks knowledge that, in the case of COVID-19, will help preserve life and reduce suffering…things that mesh with the teachings of the Jesus Christ they claim to revere.

Tell people there’s an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure.

Here’s the thing about the 2020 Presidential election: Donald Trump lost. No matter what you as a “Christian” might want to believe, that changes the facts on the ground not one bit.

You can worship God or Donald Trump…but you cannot credibly worship both. Donald Trump is a committed Christian like Jeffrey Dahmer was devoted to following a plant-based diet. Trump’s “faith” is purely performative, and the Rabid Christian Right was committed to Trump because he promised them a seat at the table.

It was purely transactional and solely focused on political power. Trump had it, the Rabid Christian Right wanted it, and Trump was more than willing to use that desire for a seat at the table for his own purposes.

May the forces of Evil become confused on the way to your house.

We live in difficult times, so it makes sense that some folks might be grasping at straws and looking for something, anything, that will lend stability and peace to their life.

Unfortunately for these folks, American Christianity has devolved into nothing if not one big grift, with people from Joel Osteen to Jim Bakker to- well, the list is long and not particularly illustrious. Yet, they’re all ready to tell you how Jesus wants you to live your life…and it involves you sending them money.

The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments in courthouses? You can’t post “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and “Thou shalt not lie” in a building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.

I have friends and family members who are committed Christians, and I respect their commitment to their faith. Why? Because they actually endeavor to LIVE that faith. For them, Christianity is more than just a reason to place themselves over those who don’t believe and are thus “less than.” They don’t think in these terms, and they seriously believe that their faith can and should be used to make the world a better place.

I don’t hate religion as a concept. As a theory, as a philosophy of one should live lifeived, religion actually has much to offer. In most cases, it’s about peaceful co-existence and making the world a better place. Who’s going to argue with that?

Sadly, modern Christianity (and religion in general) has been stripped of most of its positive qualities by believers intent on using their faith as a club with which to bludgeon those they consider “less than.” Those they look down upon tend to have skin that isn’t white, profess a different faith, and/or embrace a different sexual orientation/gender identity.

When you’re born in the world, you’re given a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you’re given a front-row seat.

In the case of Kent Christmas and like-minded “Christians,” their pronouncements have nothing to do with the spiritual well-being of followers of Jesus Christ. In fact, following their diktats will almost result in Christians suffering and, in many cases, dying.

I may not be a theologian, but I do remember enough Sunday School Christianity to recall that Jesus didn’t teach rejecting science. Nor did the Prince of Peace sanction the reckless, self-interested grift that people like Kent Christmas have made their raison d’ etre.

Believe what you will. Live as you see fit. This is still a free country, and freedom of religion is still a thing. It would be helpful if you tried to keep in mind that we live in a time that calls upon ALL of us to do our part to care for the well-being of humanity. True Christianity, REAL Christianity, gets that. It isn’t about selfishness, arrogance, and willful ignorance. Yet that’s exactly what Kent Christmas is preaching.

I believe that IF Jesus Christ were real, he’d be weeping into his Bud Light right about now. And he wouldn’t be wrong.

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