An Arundel Tomb
Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone finality
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.
-- Philip Larkin
Today seems like a good day for a rant.
I have spoken with friends many times about my religious views. Well, my views on religion anyway. I don't talk about religion here much, but I do from time to time talk about the religious. The hypocrisy of the religious to be more exact.
I have spent so much time studying my own religious views, looking for that thing that restores faith and brings one back into the 'fold' as it were. It never fails that in my searching I find myself face to face with the worst hypocrits I have ever seen. And always they lurk behind a Bible, ranting on the sins of others and not accepting their own sinful nature.
I'll throw a few things out there.
*Not saying that all religious people or any one particular religion is guilty of these things, just something I am finding more and more on my journey.
1) Ugly wom&n with no s&x drive are always accusing attractive women of being imm0ral and unintelligent. They use the Bible to show how they are too *moral* to present themselves as s&xu@l beings, when the truth is they are really just jealous and frigid. Afraid that if hubby lifts his head out of the good book for two minutes he might realize that there are h()t ch!cks out there and dump your frumpy @ss. My advice: Put down the fried chicken, go get a thigh master, and get yourself together! Then you won't have to hate everyone who might turn your husband's head. And the Bible is not going to make you pretty. You can pray on it day and night and it just isn't going to happen. Try Estee Lauder Night Renewal. It beats Corinthians any day for nice skin.
2) Being an Atheist does not mean being imm0ral. I know that most of the Bible thumpers out there would disagree, but you can have a good life, raise well-balanced, healthy children, have a great career and get a good education without believing in God. I have plenty of atheist friends and they are all very good, kind people. If my atheist friends prayed they would pray for the zealot's souls. I'm sure the reverse is not true. So much easier to condemn than to I try to uplift. I try to see the zealot's point of view. Really I do. Then I promptly throw-up. Most of them are just despicable in the way they treat and talk about others.
There is this thing called 'works'.
You should try it sometime.
3) G@y is g@y. I have a friend who is trying to become un-g@y. He is driving me nuts! People in his church have convinced him that his g@yness is a sin and he should try to 'reform' himself. I find this absolutely absurd and appalling. I tell him 'I love you the way you are. I don't want you to change for some people who are probably miserable with their own lives.' Watching p@rn then criticizing young girls for wearing low-riders, sl&&ping with the babysitter, saying their prayers with their children as they tuck them in then sneaking out to have an @ff@ir, like some M@ry M@gdalen character in a totally f*cked episode of 'Desper@ate Housew$ves. Please just be who you are. That's what I love about you.
I used these stupid symbols to show the hypocrisy of these people; "I can use these words, but I won't really write them because that would be like... like... using them. See how clever I am? See how I can get around really practicing what I preach? I found the Jesus L**ph*le! I am so cool!" (We call this the Jocelyn Loophole.)
If you're going to use curse words just do it. Believe me. God knows an awful lot, and I'm sure God is quite aware that those are curse words. You can't hide your cursing from God with stupid symbols, nor your hypocrisy.
So tell me, if you believe in God... will your God love you more for
worshipping him and being a hypocrite, than if you were an atheist who lives well and treats others well? Is that what your God says? Worship me, and all is forgiven--but live well and call your god Shiva or Yehovah or Allah and you're doomed?
Religion is fine if it helps you personally to be a better human being. But if your religion tells you that the only way to be a good person is to be a member of a specfic club, I have to pass. If it tells you that everyone else is going to hell, I have to pass. If it tells you that Nelson Mandela and Ghandi and Mother Teresa are going to hell, I have to pass. If it tells you that you can treat others poorly and you will be forgiven by your words of faith and that your actions are not accountable, I have to pass.
Does your religion tell you that a person who doesn't believe in god can't be good? Does your religion say that Albert Schweitzer and Einstein and Galileo and Jonas Salk will go to Hell, but Josef Mengele can go to Heaven because he says he accepts Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior? Pass.
I always come back to these questions because I believe in God, but I also believe, in my truest heart, that doing the right thing and caring about and treating others well has everything to do with the Golden Rule and nothing to do with God. It's about doing the right thing not because God will reward you for doing it, or because you are afraid of burning in hell if you dont do it. It's about doing the right thing simply because--it's the right thing to do. And that has everthing to do with being a human being and recognising that we all are human beings, and nothing to do with God.
Plato figured this out 2000 years ago in the Euthyphro--why dont you?
If you think holy=loved by god you just don't get it.
"What is loved by the gods is not, then, identical to what is holy, Euthyphro; nor does holy mean god-beloved, as you maintain; these are distinct things."
Have you done anything lately that might just have pissed God off? Maybe you are loving God right now, but he is shaking his finger at you? Maybe getting into Heaven is like Monopoly - you can buy all of the hotels, but you didn't pass GO. You don't get $200. And that $200 is what you needed to get into God's good graces?
I guess the real question today is not do you love God, but does God love you?
I think if there is a God we are at the 'working things out' stage in our relationship.
