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Permalink Reply by Steph S. on June 14, 2012 at 5:55pm

I love that graphic. It's so very true too and so sad. Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on June 14, 2012 at 6:02pm

More like cafeteria christian logic, but then, there are probably more christians who pick and choose what of the bible they wish to adhere to than there are those who want to take the whole schmeer and attempt to assert that it all must be followed rigorously.

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Permalink Reply by James M. Martin on June 14, 2012 at 6:13pm

Loren, I think we should give the latter group what they really want: a theme park where you're allowed to witness the Life of Christ...as Christ.  The exit is permanent: when you wind your way through the park a final game has them hammering you up on a cross using three nine inch nails.  Students dressed as centurians say in unison, "Truly, he was the son of God."  If you are still conscious, you look up and say, "Into your hands, &c."

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Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on June 14, 2012 at 6:19pm

Hey, they wanna be like Christ? Give 'em what they want and go the entire route! I mean, all we're doing here is:

Just trying to keep my customers satisfied...
-- Paul (Rhymin') Simon

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Permalink Reply by James M. Martin on June 14, 2012 at 6:22pm

Sorry but cannot remember the context of this one line.  Help.  I am following a discussion on whether life is without meaning if religion is replaced with reason and my only question was, "Why does life have to be meaningful?"  Instead of God I have the benign indifference of the universe.  Certainty, not supposition.

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Permalink Reply by Steph S. on June 14, 2012 at 6:48pm

Hey there James! That's from my discussion and I read that line. I like the question you pose. Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by James M. Martin on June 16, 2012 at 5:57pm

Well, seriously, only the fetish and conceit of a personal deity that cares about you and 300 billion other people, personally, allows some fools to "find purpose" in their faith while simultaneously illustrating that their lives actually have NO meaning: take away the delusion, they are without defenses.  What they really fear is Truth.

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Permalink Reply by James M. Martin on June 17, 2012 at 9:11am

Yes, but only in epistles by that Zealot convert, Saul/Paul, the original sinner.  (He did not have a religious inspiration on the road to Damascus, but an entirely commercial one: with Jesus dead, he could invent the myth of resurrection; after all, it had worked for the founders of the Attis myth, the Osiris myth, and a dozen others.)  And it must always be borne in mind that psychotherapists identify in the scant bit we know of the historical Paul read together with the gospels themselves, an author who is both a misogynist and a deeply closeted homosexual.  Not to mention that, being Jewish, he had to have been influenced somewhat by the admonitions of the Torah.  (But then, obviously, God was a homophobe and male chauvinist pig, and He has allowed misogynist homophobes to justify their fear, contempt, and other emotions down through the centuries.) Finally, the Holy Land was a seething sewer of religiousity and itinerant messianicism: why do you think the Book of Acts is so down on the figure of Simon Magus?  Let me tell you something: I have read Simon Magus's holy book and he would never have stepped on women's rights or those of the sexual minorities.  He was not the vain, evil person depicted in the "Good Book," but a mystic with a message more extraordinary than that of "Jesus."  I am led to suspect that Simon was real, Christ a fiction. Simon would have posed a palpable threat to establishment of Christeranity, and for that reason he was dissed by the Tarsan.

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Permalink Reply by booklover on June 17, 2012 at 11:28am

I love when people say, well MY 'god' would never do a thing like that. Or, the god I believe in would never act like that.  Must be nice to have your own personal 'god'?

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Permalink Reply by James M. Martin on June 17, 2012 at 4:37pm

The concept of a personal deity in the literal sense is very old indeed.  The Hindu pantheon must be in the millions.  Even in monotheism, we see angels and cherubim and such.  These are the functional equivalent to personal gods, else why do people appeal to them as much if not more than to their deity?

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Permalink Reply by booklover on June 17, 2012 at 5:13pm

Kinda like guardian angels?  Boy are they out-to-lunch a lot with all the bad crap that happens to people.

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