When I was a child I thought the idea of God and Jesus were a wonderful idea. The stories I would here of Jesus were always so heartbreaking and compassionate. How could you not want to believe in such beauty and kindness? I had a great respect for the Bible. I looked at it very simply, the way every church wants you to look at it. It’s book written by man under the divine inspiration of God.
How awesome is that!? Here is this book, a sort of instruction manual for your faith. However, I had never read the Bible as a child or even as a young adult. I just assumed that what priests and preachers told me was true. They obviously must be very learned in the Bible and in faith. They have dedicated their very lives to it. They have got to know what they are talking about. So, not only do we have this great book but we have all these experts we can turn to for guidance.
So where does it all go so horribly wrong? Is it the extremists? The fundamentalists? The everyday believer? I tend to think that it’s all of the above. The best way to explain this is through an example. Let’s start with Muslims for example. If you know nothing about the religion, and I will be the first to admit I know very little about the religion. But, my opinions here are based on what the Muslims I’ve heard speak about things like 9/11 and other extremest activities supported by their faith.
The Muslims I have met have seemed to be extremely, calm, nice and friendly people and to be quite honest, more approachable and considerate than most Christians I have met. However, when you look at what the extremists preach, it all comes from the same book. The extremists aren’t lying when they quote it, that crazy shit about killing the infidels is all true. Now the Muslim community will tell you that what these extremists believe is misunderstood from the actual text and so on. That, though the extremists are quoting word for word from the Koran, the Muslim community is telling us, that’s not what that means. (I am under-simplifying this but more or less this is in fact what they are telling us.)
Basically, what you have is a different interpretation of the same text. Or, to put it matter-of-factly, you have the peace loving Muslims making excuses for the brutality and insanity of their book. A complete denial of what the text says.
Now, I don’t believe this is really intentional. In fact, it’s quite natural and almost all of are guilty of this very same thing. Parents do this all time when their kids screw up. “This isn’t like little Johnny. If he did that he must have been provoked!” A better example would be, have you ever seen a movie that you instantly loved. Then someone comes along and points out every single damn flaw in the film. Everything from problems with the story to the bad acting. How do you react? “They just don’t get it!” Or, you see what they’re saying, but you don’t care about all that. You just like the movie so you’re wiling to overlook all the mistakes.
This is how religion works. It’s a flawed, brutal fairytale, that a great many people just like. No matter what facts are presented they are going to be ignored because the simple fact is that some people just want to believe. As I said, that is completely understandable. It’s human nature even. However, by this logic, it must be okay for everyone else to just believe what they want to believe. That means, the extremists are just as justified as you are to believe in what they want to believe.
What’s worse, is when the religious stop following the book of their faith because the book doesn’t always seemed to agree with the way they think. So now, you’ve got religious people running around claiming to be Catholic, Protestant, Born Again’s just making shit up about what they believe. And, if you don’t think that’s scary, ask yourself, how much of the Bible do you really think you know? Do you agree with all of it? Just some of it? Do you make excuses for the bad stuff in the bible? This is basically what every single religious person I’ve ever taken the time to talk to does. And, if you believe in a god, if you’re honest with yourself, you have to admit that you do the same thing.
So, what makes you right and them wrong.
Now if you’re a Christian and you read the above part about Muslims and had anything negative to say, stop judging them, you do the exact same things. What’s that? You don’t believe me? Here’s a few examples.
First let’s start with those loons that go around blowing abortion clinics. These crazy ass Christians thinking it’s okay to kill anyone who supports abortion. That is crazy.
How about this? I am sure you’ve heard of the Westboro Baptist Church. Here’s a group of nutjobs who preach exactly what the Bible says. Of course they leave out a lot of the good things in the bible. But, as a Christian how do you condemn them? Do you even grasp the meaning of the word hypocrite? If you’re a Christian, they are probably no different than you are. You know for a fact, what they preach is in the bible. They are not lying about a thing they say. What they are guilty of is ignoring the other parts of the bible that talk about loving your neighbor, turning the other cheek, not judging others and so on. However, aren’t you doing the same thing in reverse? You are picking and choosing what parts of the bible you want to believe and pretty much ignoring the rest. Or, worse, making excuses for the parts you don’t like. Telling yourself things like, “They don’t understand, they’re getting it wrong?”
Well, sorry to tell you but you’re doing the same the WBC is doing and the same thing the Muslim extremists are doing. The level of hypocrisy is staggering. You can try to justify it to yourself as much as you want. But, the truth is the truth whether you want to believe it or not.
Seriously, the Bible condones rape, sexism, slavery, bigotry, child killing, sacrifices and it is filed with lie after lie. This is the reality of the Bible. In fact here’s an interesting story I just read this morning, “Who Wrote The Bible and Why It Matters.“
If you don’t want to read it, here’s a summary. A great many of the books in the New Testament, were not written by who it claims wrote them. This is fact, it’s not speculation. It’s a short article, you really should read it.
In my experience, people believe in their god because their parents brought them up to believe in him. Or, because they just want to believe because it’s a beautiful concept and gives them hope at something better. The sad part is that, what it does do, is condemn you to a world that ignores science and fact over faith. There is so much more possible in science than any religion. If you don’t see that or get that, you have no idea what scientist are working on. Things like quantum physics and string theory. The idea of multiple universes, time travel, other realities, immortality, what is love, and yes, even life after death. This is what we can learn from science.
No matter how you try, you will never learn any of that from religion. It’s just that it’s easier to believe that God did everything, and all is possible through him. I get it but it’s not real. It’s a delusion created by man for nothing more than crowd control.
Even beloved Jesus. You have any ideas how many Jesus types came before Jesus? Below is a list of few that pre-date our current day white Jesus.
