As for today, I'd like to preach to ya, brothers and sisters. Yeppers, we're coming back around to the Jesus train. No complaining, it's not a subject I hit often ( I believe the last time was here), but every once in a while, I have to get it out. I actually have a pretty serious spiritual life, in spite of never going to church and the amount of swear words that come out of my mouth. And in spite of the various bizarre paths I find myself on, I consider myself a Christian, because I attempt to follow the teachings of Christ. Now, don't run away, because I promise you, I'm not going to tell you about how you're going to hell for not believing. I honestly believe that none of us really have the full story here--we've all got part of the puzzle, but each part is mixed in with some other puzzle pieces and we don't even have all of the pieces for the one we're actually trying to put together.
But before I get carried away with espousing my own beliefs, let's get back on topic. Today's post is for all you evangelicals out there (atheists, agnostics, and others who have been burned, feel free to sit back with some popcorn). Yes, you know who I'm talking about. I'm talking about those of you who go door to door to talk about Jesus, and you cunt monkeys who litter tracts on the vehicles of innocent bystanders.
Sorry, I probably shouldn't have called you cunt monkeys. Not very Christian of me.
At the same time, I really don't appreciate finding tracts under my windshield wipers when I come back out of the new age bookstore. I mean, it's better than finding out my car got towed because I parked in a staff lot for the university, but when I was gone for like 20 minutes and looking to see what books they had on chaos and sigil magic, it really feels like you're stalking me.
Furthermore, when your tract gets oddly specific, it kinda makes all the rest of us Christians look bad. For example, the one I found on my car most recently discussed what happens five minutes after you die.
This is what happens when I try to take detail photos with my phone.
For those of you can't cross your eyes sufficiently, the pertinent part is, "Unless you have prepared for your eternity in this life, five minutes after you die you will feel the flames of an eternal Hell for ever and ever."
Ignoring the fact that you'll be in "an eternal Hell" as opposed to "THE eternal Hell" (because you'd think if they only believe in one god and one heaven, they'd only believe in one hell, too), how, HOW do they know it takes five minutes to get to Hell? Seriously! I mean, pretty sure there's nothing about that in the bible (most of the time spans in there are pretty vague. I think the three days it took Jesus to come back to life may have been the most specific), so how did they find this out? Did they send researchers out on this topic? How did they get back with the data? What's going on during that five minutes? Are you being judged? I'd like to think God takes more than five of our minutes to make that decision. I mean, usually we're told that right after you die (if you've been good, that is) you go straight to heaven. Why is there this delay in getting to Hell? And how do they even know that time passes at the same rate (or at all) in the spiritual realm? Seriously, I genuinely want to know how they came to this conclusion.
I even went so far as to go to the website of the tract printers ( http://www.gospeltractsociety.org/ ,if you want to get in on this) and I sent them an email asking how they knew this, but either they don't work weekends or they assumed I was trolling (I kinda am, but I really do want to know).
The point here is, throwing shit like this out there for the anti-Christians to find is like giving North Korea nukes. You're just doing their work for them.
Fire and brimstone doesn't work anymore. Fear is never the best motivator, and telling people to believe or else, well, you catch more flies with honey, ya know what I'm saying?
I get that you're genuinely trying to do the right thing here. I mean, after all, if you believe that your religion is the only way to not suffer for all eternity, then it's only right to get as many people to join as possible, so as to save them from that dreadful fate. At the same time, just going around telling everyone is maybe not the most effective way to spread your message. After all, what about all the other Christians out there? They've already heard the word. No need to preach to the choir, so to speak. I mean, you've never met me. Why automatically assume I'm a Satan worshiping heathen? Is it because you don't know me? I've gotta tell ya, if that's it, well, generally speaking, if only the people that you know are the ones who believe what you're preaching, chances are good you're probably in a cult. Seriously, there's billions of people on this planet. If you've really got it right, there's almost certainly someone you don't know who's in on it. Personally, I find it rather offensive that you assume I haven't heard the message of Christ (which, for the record, was much more about love and forgiveness than about going to Hell, and that whole born again thing is in Paul. Paul never even met Jesus, and he was an asshole). You've just met me, and you already think I'm so horrible that I'm going to Hell? Not cool, man, not cool.
Long story short (if any of you evangelicals are even left to read this after I called you cunt monkeys), going around and shoving your religion in other people's faces is a really horrible way to convert them. Either you're preaching at (and pissing off) the choir, or you're openly insulting people. No one wants to hang out with sanctimonious assholes, brothers and sisters. By calling yourselves Christians and "preaching the word," you're making the rest of us look bad, and driving away everyone who used to be on the fence. There's a lot of people out there who would be Christians, if somebody would take the time to seriously answer their questions. And there's so many others who have been driven away from the church by the people in it. I've heard horror stories about churches performing exorcisms on rebellious teenagers, the pedophiles in the Catholic church (it's really not all the priests, I swear), not to mention the sheer number of atheists, agnostics, and pagans I know who used to be Christians. Heck, one of the most die hard atheists I know grew up in a family of Jehovah's Witnesses. If I grew up with that, I'd be an atheist, too.
So, what's my actual point here? I guess it's that people need to stop assuming that their religion (or lack thereof--atheists, I'm looking at those of you who think people who believe in God are stupid, that's just as bad as the fundamentalist Christians) is the only way. That they're the only ones who are right. And that you have to unthinkingly follow the decrees of that religion or you're going to hell. Cut other people some slack, for the love of god. Ask questions--unless I seriously misinterpreted something, the whole reason God gave us free will was because He (or She, if that's your pleasure) wanted us to come to Him on our own. He wanted us to choose to love him. How do you make that choice without asking questions? You can't. So stop expecting other people to just accept your word for it that your religion is the only path to God, and start justifying your beliefs.
(I'm sure Jesus loved the dinosaurs, but let's be honest, it doesn't help our credibility to say so.)
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