I read a survey recently (I can not recall when it was published; it may have been as long ago as 2004 or as recently as this year) that said that 55% of American adults believed that God created man, in his own image, exactly as he appears today. These people believe that the world is (according to which one you talk to) 6,000-10,000 years old. Some of them believe dinosaur bones are a hoax perpetrated on us by "Satan", others that dinsoaurs did exist, and in fact cohabitated peacefully with humans.
I want to ask that latter group of people something. If dinosaurs were around in the biblical era, if they truly roamed the Earth along with the world's first peoples, as you suggest, don't you think that the Bible surely would have mentioned them, SOMEWHERE? I mean, it's only the world's most perfect book, right? Written by God Almighty HimSelf (are you supposed to capitalize the H and the S in himself? I'm not entirely sure of the etiquitte you're supposed to use on deitetical pronouns... Deitetical? is that even a word?)? Don't you think that it seems a little bit odd that the world's most perfect book, the World of the Lord, didn't see it fit to mention that gigantic fucking lizards with razor-sharp teeth were roaming the countryside, brutally slaughtering and devouring anything hapless enough to come across its path?
These are the same people...the 55%, both the dinosaur believers and the hoaxheads, who wonder why our kids suck so badly at school. It's because of you, you idiots. You fill your kids' heads up with this preposterous nonsense, and tell them that their teachers in school are going to try and indoctrinate them against Jesus, but stay strong, and ignore what they tell you, it's all lies. So the little fuck-ups don't know any better, they ignore everything they're told in school, just like their parents told them to do, they fail all of their standardized tests, and then the parents scream, "see, I told y'all they aren't teaching any good in that there school up there; let's pull them out of that public hell-hole and send them to a place that will teach them about Jesus!" And then the little brats go to a school where all of the horrible shit their parents told them since they were a little baby gets reenforced. If the family can afford to save up enough to send this poor kid to college, it will be the only kind of college that would accept a kid as backwards as this - a degree mill that isn't even recognized by the academic community and that only serves to pump money into the wallets of the very successful con-men who are good enough at their craft of robbing old ladies of their prescription pill money to have enough capital to get one of these operations started, and then nobody but nobody will actually recognize this degree when they go job-hunting, so college was pretty much a waste anyway. And when the child "grows up" (physical maturation in the only aging process going on here, folks) he turns around and spews out the same shit at the poor little bastard who has the unfortunate fate of being this asshole's offspring. And the cycle continues - a perfect circle. In many ways, a perfect circle of perfect circles.
Let me ask the Christian believers out there another question. Does it bother you, deep down, to know that the true history of your religion is obvious to all but the least impartial of observers? Or have you successfully buried it under the sand, hoping it will never turn its ugly head again? What is he talking about, you're asking yourselves, trying desperately to cling to the belief that you have no idea what I am talking about. Like most of your beliefs, you cling to it the face of a mountain of evidence, out of sheer terror of what lies outside of the wall of lies you have fed yourself over the years.
What happened is that life was pretty well shit 2,000 years ago. There was no running water, no electricity, no iPods or HDTVs or even Harry Potter books to distract yourself. And, apparently, everyone who didn't live in Rome lived in the desert. People were bored pretty much of the time, and nothing on God's Green Earth is more capable of horrifying acts than a mass of people who are bored, with the possible exception of a mass of people who are afraid. So, people did what they do best: they killed each other. They killed each other for wealth, they killed each other for power, they killed each other in the name of their Emporers, and they killed each other sheerly for the entertainment of others. Then this guy comes along, this Jesus fellow. He goes around saying that people should be nice to each other. For the most part, he's ignored at first, but he assembles a following, not unlike Socrates did 400 years before him. But unlike Socrates, whose message of "what is wisdom?" was largely unappealing to the masses, mostly because existential debate is outside of the realm of concern for people who are trying to subsist on what they can provide for themselves on a daily basis, Jesus's message, "let's all be nice", was very appealing to the general population, probably because they were tired of being thrown into wars by their Emporers. If only the poor fools knew what was in store for their descendants because of this.
Then, when the Romans (not the Jews) executed Christ, shit really hit the fan. Now, Jesus was the original martyr. The angry populace, who could not see why their government would execute someone who's only alleged crime was going around teaching people to act civilized towards each other (the reason, of course, being that the government wanted these people whipped up in a frenzy of fear, hate and anger at all times, because scared, hateful and angry people are the easiest to manipulate), turned in the masses to what was called Christianity but was really an amorphous collection of beliefs, that largely were changed from person to person, and finally the Emporers knew they could no longer contain this following, had to act decisively to retain their power. And they acted immediately, and ingenuisly - they "converted". Suddenly, hey, they believed all of this Christianity stuff. And to show how much they meant it, they would build a Church. So, they built the Church, from the ground up. They installed a heirerarchy, and put all of their guys at the top. Including at the very top, from which the voice would be as if from God Himself. And, oh yeah, they made a few changes to the story. Instead of being just a philisopher, Jesus was the Son of God, and therefore, anybody who did not convert to the new "Church of Jesus", the one we just built and put our men at the top of, was making an offense against God. And to top it off, they made the story say that it wasn't them, the Romans, who were responsible for the execution of Christ, no it was those dirty Jews; that the public believed this at the time and that many still do is indicative of what a group of stupid assholes the public can be, especially in light of the fact that Jesus was, himself, a Jew!
Oh, and by the way, the first act of this new church was to use its Holy Authority to declare that the Emporer - the guy who just installed all of the people making this decision - had divine right to rule, a lovely concept that is still with us today. If you ever wanted to know how the Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire - well, that's it, right there.
Another completely laughable idea came along later. You see, Christ told us all to love one another, and that's great, but people really like a fight. I mean, they REALLY like it. And they think that if you don't like a good fight, you must be a pussy. And noone wants to follow around a religious icon that's a pussy, right? Well, some folks have no problem with this idea - those would be the original Christians. Those that did have a problem with it were the ones who became "Christians" because the new Church added another chapter to the tale. This is the one of the End Times, the Four Horsemen, the Rapture, and all of that. Suddenly, Jesus, the guy who wanted us all to love another, all to treat the least among us like our equals, he becomes, well, he becomes fucking Beowulf. All of the sudden the motherfucker is swinging around a flaming sword, chopping the heads off a seven headed beast, and casting Satan into a lake of eternal flame. And the people who wanted peace could imagine that they were going to skip all of that ugliness by Rapturing away, while those that liked a good fight could all pretend they were going to be among the elite Jesusguard, covering the Big Man's back as he fought the demons back with his phallus - errr, sword.
Speaking of phalluses, we want you - errr, that is, God wants you - to not fuck outside of marriage.
You see, because then you end up with all of these little bastard kids, you see, and they're an awful strain on our economy.
And that is where the "Christian" obsession with sex comes from. That and the fact that, later on, after the Church had the brilliant idea to keep it's clergy from ever marrying, so they could be "married to God", i.e., so their loyalty to the Emporer is not corrupted by a wife, I suppose, the clergy who weren't getting any resented all of the people out there who were, and so they put as many restrictions on the practice as possible without killing off the peasant population entirely, upon whose backs the royalty and the church higher-ups feasted.
And the restrictions against homosexuality - same story. It used to be that homosexuality, or at least, bisexuality, was openly accepted practice. In bath houses it was commonplace. In both the Greek and Roman societies, it was common for an older man to take a younger boy as a companion. If you outlawed all sex between men and women except in instances of procreation, then the men would simply have sex with the men and the women with the women. So you had to outlaw that, too. Tada. The proof is in the wording: "if any one lie with a man as with a woman...". The only phrase left out in the final version was : "were it not that we had essentially already outlawed that practice, as well...."
Why do people continue to believe this? Well, first of all, they are afraid. They are afraid that, after all, what if this is right? Won't we look like assholes in front of God? Didn't my mommy say that these so-called scientists didn't know what they were talking about?
But they are also afraid of death. Death is the great unknown. There is no way of exploring Death and then coming back to tell the rest of us what it's like. If we reencarnate, apparently we lose all sense of our former selves. But the Bible gives us something to look forward to - to pretend to know. That there is a Heaven and a Hell, and that we will be sent to one or the other depending on how much of a good little "Christian" we were.
Without "Christianity", that alleged certainty crumbles. Now there is no safety net, just the prospect of the great unknown, coming to collect us at any time. Should there be fear, in light of this? Certainly. But there should also be bravery - anticipation, even, for the final adventure. And we should live our lives trying to figure out as much about the universe around us while we are here, as long it takes before our final adventure should begin.
So, you're probably saying to yourself, does this guy have any religious beliefs? I'll bet not. I'll be he's one of those Athiestic Communists. As a matter of fact, I am not an athiest (nor am I a Communist, but that's a different story). I resent the fact that everyone assumes that if you're not a mamber of a mjor world religion, you are an athiest. Athiesism is as distasteful to me as any major religion, from a logical standpoint. Athiests, like theists, argue that they KNOW THE TRUTH, without having any possible way of even beginning to.
So, what are my religious beliefs? Well, I'll tell you the main tenent of my religion, the only one I proselytize: God is Great, far Greater than anything we can imagine, by ourselves or in groups, no matter how large. His awesomeness defies all comprehension. But, human beings being what we are, we will attempt to imagine It anyway. So, if you must try and imagine what God is like, do it yourself. Come up with your own picture of how God and the Universe relate. If you think he should be worshipped, worship him. If you think he should be asked for guidance, then ask him. But keep your beliefs to yourself, and understand that they are most certainly wrong. Be prepared to modify your beliefs to fit new evidence that comes to light. For when we pass away, if we find out how God really is, we will find something much more and much better than whatever we came up with.
I'd tell you more, but my religion forbids it.
I want to ask that latter group of people something. If dinosaurs were around in the biblical era, if they truly roamed the Earth along with the world's first peoples, as you suggest, don't you think that the Bible surely would have mentioned them, SOMEWHERE? I mean, it's only the world's most perfect book, right? Written by God Almighty HimSelf (are you supposed to capitalize the H and the S in himself? I'm not entirely sure of the etiquitte you're supposed to use on deitetical pronouns... Deitetical? is that even a word?)? Don't you think that it seems a little bit odd that the world's most perfect book, the World of the Lord, didn't see it fit to mention that gigantic fucking lizards with razor-sharp teeth were roaming the countryside, brutally slaughtering and devouring anything hapless enough to come across its path?
These are the same people...the 55%, both the dinosaur believers and the hoaxheads, who wonder why our kids suck so badly at school. It's because of you, you idiots. You fill your kids' heads up with this preposterous nonsense, and tell them that their teachers in school are going to try and indoctrinate them against Jesus, but stay strong, and ignore what they tell you, it's all lies. So the little fuck-ups don't know any better, they ignore everything they're told in school, just like their parents told them to do, they fail all of their standardized tests, and then the parents scream, "see, I told y'all they aren't teaching any good in that there school up there; let's pull them out of that public hell-hole and send them to a place that will teach them about Jesus!" And then the little brats go to a school where all of the horrible shit their parents told them since they were a little baby gets reenforced. If the family can afford to save up enough to send this poor kid to college, it will be the only kind of college that would accept a kid as backwards as this - a degree mill that isn't even recognized by the academic community and that only serves to pump money into the wallets of the very successful con-men who are good enough at their craft of robbing old ladies of their prescription pill money to have enough capital to get one of these operations started, and then nobody but nobody will actually recognize this degree when they go job-hunting, so college was pretty much a waste anyway. And when the child "grows up" (physical maturation in the only aging process going on here, folks) he turns around and spews out the same shit at the poor little bastard who has the unfortunate fate of being this asshole's offspring. And the cycle continues - a perfect circle. In many ways, a perfect circle of perfect circles.
Let me ask the Christian believers out there another question. Does it bother you, deep down, to know that the true history of your religion is obvious to all but the least impartial of observers? Or have you successfully buried it under the sand, hoping it will never turn its ugly head again? What is he talking about, you're asking yourselves, trying desperately to cling to the belief that you have no idea what I am talking about. Like most of your beliefs, you cling to it the face of a mountain of evidence, out of sheer terror of what lies outside of the wall of lies you have fed yourself over the years.
What happened is that life was pretty well shit 2,000 years ago. There was no running water, no electricity, no iPods or HDTVs or even Harry Potter books to distract yourself. And, apparently, everyone who didn't live in Rome lived in the desert. People were bored pretty much of the time, and nothing on God's Green Earth is more capable of horrifying acts than a mass of people who are bored, with the possible exception of a mass of people who are afraid. So, people did what they do best: they killed each other. They killed each other for wealth, they killed each other for power, they killed each other in the name of their Emporers, and they killed each other sheerly for the entertainment of others. Then this guy comes along, this Jesus fellow. He goes around saying that people should be nice to each other. For the most part, he's ignored at first, but he assembles a following, not unlike Socrates did 400 years before him. But unlike Socrates, whose message of "what is wisdom?" was largely unappealing to the masses, mostly because existential debate is outside of the realm of concern for people who are trying to subsist on what they can provide for themselves on a daily basis, Jesus's message, "let's all be nice", was very appealing to the general population, probably because they were tired of being thrown into wars by their Emporers. If only the poor fools knew what was in store for their descendants because of this.
Then, when the Romans (not the Jews) executed Christ, shit really hit the fan. Now, Jesus was the original martyr. The angry populace, who could not see why their government would execute someone who's only alleged crime was going around teaching people to act civilized towards each other (the reason, of course, being that the government wanted these people whipped up in a frenzy of fear, hate and anger at all times, because scared, hateful and angry people are the easiest to manipulate), turned in the masses to what was called Christianity but was really an amorphous collection of beliefs, that largely were changed from person to person, and finally the Emporers knew they could no longer contain this following, had to act decisively to retain their power. And they acted immediately, and ingenuisly - they "converted". Suddenly, hey, they believed all of this Christianity stuff. And to show how much they meant it, they would build a Church. So, they built the Church, from the ground up. They installed a heirerarchy, and put all of their guys at the top. Including at the very top, from which the voice would be as if from God Himself. And, oh yeah, they made a few changes to the story. Instead of being just a philisopher, Jesus was the Son of God, and therefore, anybody who did not convert to the new "Church of Jesus", the one we just built and put our men at the top of, was making an offense against God. And to top it off, they made the story say that it wasn't them, the Romans, who were responsible for the execution of Christ, no it was those dirty Jews; that the public believed this at the time and that many still do is indicative of what a group of stupid assholes the public can be, especially in light of the fact that Jesus was, himself, a Jew!
Oh, and by the way, the first act of this new church was to use its Holy Authority to declare that the Emporer - the guy who just installed all of the people making this decision - had divine right to rule, a lovely concept that is still with us today. If you ever wanted to know how the Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire - well, that's it, right there.
Another completely laughable idea came along later. You see, Christ told us all to love one another, and that's great, but people really like a fight. I mean, they REALLY like it. And they think that if you don't like a good fight, you must be a pussy. And noone wants to follow around a religious icon that's a pussy, right? Well, some folks have no problem with this idea - those would be the original Christians. Those that did have a problem with it were the ones who became "Christians" because the new Church added another chapter to the tale. This is the one of the End Times, the Four Horsemen, the Rapture, and all of that. Suddenly, Jesus, the guy who wanted us all to love another, all to treat the least among us like our equals, he becomes, well, he becomes fucking Beowulf. All of the sudden the motherfucker is swinging around a flaming sword, chopping the heads off a seven headed beast, and casting Satan into a lake of eternal flame. And the people who wanted peace could imagine that they were going to skip all of that ugliness by Rapturing away, while those that liked a good fight could all pretend they were going to be among the elite Jesusguard, covering the Big Man's back as he fought the demons back with his phallus - errr, sword.
Speaking of phalluses, we want you - errr, that is, God wants you - to not fuck outside of marriage.
You see, because then you end up with all of these little bastard kids, you see, and they're an awful strain on our economy.
And that is where the "Christian" obsession with sex comes from. That and the fact that, later on, after the Church had the brilliant idea to keep it's clergy from ever marrying, so they could be "married to God", i.e., so their loyalty to the Emporer is not corrupted by a wife, I suppose, the clergy who weren't getting any resented all of the people out there who were, and so they put as many restrictions on the practice as possible without killing off the peasant population entirely, upon whose backs the royalty and the church higher-ups feasted.
And the restrictions against homosexuality - same story. It used to be that homosexuality, or at least, bisexuality, was openly accepted practice. In bath houses it was commonplace. In both the Greek and Roman societies, it was common for an older man to take a younger boy as a companion. If you outlawed all sex between men and women except in instances of procreation, then the men would simply have sex with the men and the women with the women. So you had to outlaw that, too. Tada. The proof is in the wording: "if any one lie with a man as with a woman...". The only phrase left out in the final version was : "were it not that we had essentially already outlawed that practice, as well...."
Why do people continue to believe this? Well, first of all, they are afraid. They are afraid that, after all, what if this is right? Won't we look like assholes in front of God? Didn't my mommy say that these so-called scientists didn't know what they were talking about?
But they are also afraid of death. Death is the great unknown. There is no way of exploring Death and then coming back to tell the rest of us what it's like. If we reencarnate, apparently we lose all sense of our former selves. But the Bible gives us something to look forward to - to pretend to know. That there is a Heaven and a Hell, and that we will be sent to one or the other depending on how much of a good little "Christian" we were.
Without "Christianity", that alleged certainty crumbles. Now there is no safety net, just the prospect of the great unknown, coming to collect us at any time. Should there be fear, in light of this? Certainly. But there should also be bravery - anticipation, even, for the final adventure. And we should live our lives trying to figure out as much about the universe around us while we are here, as long it takes before our final adventure should begin.
So, you're probably saying to yourself, does this guy have any religious beliefs? I'll bet not. I'll be he's one of those Athiestic Communists. As a matter of fact, I am not an athiest (nor am I a Communist, but that's a different story). I resent the fact that everyone assumes that if you're not a mamber of a mjor world religion, you are an athiest. Athiesism is as distasteful to me as any major religion, from a logical standpoint. Athiests, like theists, argue that they KNOW THE TRUTH, without having any possible way of even beginning to.
So, what are my religious beliefs? Well, I'll tell you the main tenent of my religion, the only one I proselytize: God is Great, far Greater than anything we can imagine, by ourselves or in groups, no matter how large. His awesomeness defies all comprehension. But, human beings being what we are, we will attempt to imagine It anyway. So, if you must try and imagine what God is like, do it yourself. Come up with your own picture of how God and the Universe relate. If you think he should be worshipped, worship him. If you think he should be asked for guidance, then ask him. But keep your beliefs to yourself, and understand that they are most certainly wrong. Be prepared to modify your beliefs to fit new evidence that comes to light. For when we pass away, if we find out how God really is, we will find something much more and much better than whatever we came up with.
I'd tell you more, but my religion forbids it.
posted by k - L - g at 5:59 AM
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