A lot of people are, for very good reasons, very angry with organized religion. Especially the one into which they were born.
They rightly decry the massive corruption, hypocrisy, and decadence of the religious organizations of the world. They see the conflicts between their scriptures and their own actual morality, see how the Great Book contradicts itself over and over and how much of what it contains is quite frankly horrible, and follow the health of their own mind rather than lobotomize themselves for Jesus.
They reject the goddamned Pharisees and their sinful ways and thus reject the religion of their birth, which is no longer tolerable to them at all.
But somehow, they never take it all the way.
When they reject the people in charge of their faith, they inadvertently leave those people in charge of said faith. They tacitly cede that those people do represent their faith and are the forces of piety and righteousness and then therefore have to adopt some paradoxical “anti-moral” position which is doomed to failure from the start because of its inherent self-contradictory nature.
You can’t expect to go around saying “morals are bad” with a straight face and expect to get anywhere with it.
If there are no moral, then nothing is bad, including morals. Right?
No. You have ceded far too much ground to the enemy. You have to be willing to say that these people do NOT represent good, morality, righteousness, or the will of the prophet. They never have and they never will. They are everything all the prophets railed against – cruel, ignorant, small-minded, vicious sinner whose only claim to represent your faith is that they wore the right clothes to church and performed the right rituals for all the wrong reasons.
The brutal truth is that, in Christian terms, the Devil runs your church. Satan has won in a deep and terrible way if your religion has turned to hate, division, intolerance, and fearmongering. Jesus is not and never was on their side. They do not speak for Him just because they say they do.
To them, Jesus is just a word to bash people over the head with to make them obey you. The truth is they have nothing but contempt for Him because they have nothing but contempt for all of His teachings.
In their heart of hearts, Jesus is a pussy-ass liberal faggot they would love to drag to death behind their truck. All that talk about peace, love of your neighbor, and turning the other cheek…. what kind of commie bullshit is that?
I realize that this is a hell of a pill to swallow. It’s far easier to reject the people in charge than it is to question their legitimacy from its very roots.
Technically, if you believe what I am saying, the only solution is to take back your church by legitimate, peaceful means.
And that’s kind of a big deal.
Alternately, you can start your own version of a fundamentalist sect of your faith. Only instead of being about being harsher and stricter in a bid to be “holier than though”, your sect will be all about the kindness, good will, understanding, and other things your prophet actually wanted people to focus on.
Just be nice, people! Is that so hard?
More after the break.
If it makes you happy
That title has little to do with what follows. It’s just that when I sat down to blog, that song started to play really loudly in my head.
So I figured, what the hell, let’s go with it and see what happens.
Did the Wound Care thing today. Nothing much to report.
Wound Care Specialist Nurse Vivian showed up to do a quick debridement of that pesky ever-regrowing callous on my right foot.
That’s always nice. It must not have needed it all that bad, though, because it did not take her very long.
There’s been times when she’s been scraping away with her sharp metal ball on a stick for half an hour!
I suppose I shouldn’t use that as a standard.
And as usual, she chided me on not getting new sneakers yet. My current pair are definitely on their last legs (so to speak) so she is absolutely right.
And my bad shoes are probably not helping my foot wounds heel.
But it’s hard for me to get enthused about new shoes because I know they are going to collapse and leave me flatfooted like all the rest.
MY current pair were supposed to be especially good for fat people and the arches collapsed minutes after I put them on.
Shoes always end up letting me down.
I dream of arch support. And walking without pain.
Adventures in dining in
So tonight I ordered from the Wing Kee, a Chinese place right around the corner.
Won’t be doing that again any time soon.
Because not only have they gotten WAY more expensive (at least $5 more per dish) but I ordered chicken chow mein and fried wontons and I got chow mein and fried shrimp.
I can’t eat shrimp. Pretty sure I am allergic, given the reactions I have had from just handling some shrimp.
So I had to call and complain and they are sending my wontons too.
Problem : I don’t think Joe or Julian eat shrimp either. So I am stuck with quite a lot of battered n’ fried shrimp with nobody to love them.
I really hope we don’t end up having to compost them. Both because I hate to waste food and because I know that people who love shrimp REALLY love shrimp and so I want these shrimp to be making one of those people happy.
Oh well. As long as the shrimp know this is not their fault. I am sure they are delicious.
Great, now I feel sad for shrimp.
The things I do to myself!
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.