Reasons and Passions : Jesus Freaks
They give terrible reasons. Have you seen them on your campus, preaching? Raining falsehood? I think you have, but what are we to do. How far did we come from australopithecus to get this way? To force feed eachother meals we don't all like. How diverse have we become in our understanding of the universe, in our upbringings and teachings that we have people incircled by the misunderstanding misunderstood...
I see the Jesus freaks every day, and I hate them. For wasting my time as a child, for lying to me. A student approaches the man with the unapparent microphone taped to his chest. Walks from the circle, stepping forward. "How are we supposed to believe in a literal hell," he asks.
It catches my attention and I wait above the sunken area outside the commons. There are people all around and cameras. It's the fundamentalists of our nation, like the ones in the middle east. Only, this propoghanda is less militant... because they have a hold over the majority of the people here. The people with power, at least. They hope to trickle down and infect the minor characters of this nation's story.
"That's a good question," the street-preacher points out. People say that meaning that "I have a good answer." It's the same as when people ask stupid things that clearly have nothing to do with anything, just to include their likes or dislikes in a conversation-- things they know about. Like, if your name was Griffon, and a girl asked you if you liked Harry Potter, making a link to what she knows about it, about Griffondore. Fucking Harry Potter nerds. They're almost as bad as the Jesus freaks, but they don't come nagging you about believing in their fiction.
"That's a good question," he repeats, tilting his head back. Cocking his gutteral weapon, his voice. "We must believe in a literal hell because God is good." Misfire. "God is good and evil is real." Must be jammed. Jammed with ignorance. He completely lacks reason. Well, he has reason, but it's skewed and not at all legitimate.
"So, we have to believe in a literal hell because evil is REAL, and God is good," he repeats, holding his illogical barrel at the kid's head. Seriously, the statement "A because B and C" is totally false without some extrapolation. "BELIEVE IT, IT IS TRUE BECAUSE I SAID SO. AND I SAY SO BECAUSE I READ A BOOK THAT SAID SO." A book that has been so perverted from it's original scripts, so torn and raped, so mistranslated and forced, that it cannot be believed. "BUT IT SAYS EVERYTHING IN IT IS TRUE." And that's proof? The bastardization of the Bible has ruined this very religion you claim is Christianity.
Christianity, the religious rebellion to Rome's multi-faceted system of Gods. You want one God? Okay, they said, after awhile. Christians originally didn't even really believe in marriage, and now Christians are claiming the sanctity of such an institution. They can keep on saying Christ is coming back, but he never will, he was never going to. In fact, there is no Christ, no savior. The longer we place our hope in that sort of thing, the longer we'll ignore the savior in all of us, our ability to go and do something good.
It just pisses me off. But who am I to judge them because they're wrong? At least they have a passion. Unlike myself, they persue something. Granted, something that doesn't exist. But at least they're under the impression that they're not wasting their life. I'd like to fall under the same delusion.
A mug my mother bought me stares down from the shelf hanging above my monitor. It says to go confidently in the direction of my dreams. But I don't really have any. It tells me I need to live the life I've imagined. I have no imagination. No passion. Not like Thoreau, anyway. He's the one quoted on the pale mug that sits, still staring back at me, making me wish I had something to look forward to.
There are the people, the individuals, that I've fallen in with. But other than what I can share with them, I have no passions for myself.
Comments
People spend too much time focusing on the words and what they want to say and forget that Christianity really is about what you *do*. It's horrible that the majority of the "believers" have no idea what they are really proposing to believe in.
Anyway, I'm sorry that you don't feel like you have a passion in life right now. I know anything I say won't really help, not because you're stubborn or anything, but just because it's kind of human nature to feel like no one really understands your position in these times. If I say don't worry, it'll work out, you'll take it as a sort of naive optimism. I don't blame you, I'd do the same thing in your position. But despite that, I'll leave with one thing. Just be patient and open. :)
"That's a good question," the street-preacher points out. People say that meaning that "I have a good answer."
This is so ridiculously true. I love it.
Also, I'm right there with you .110%.
And Christianity does make a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense because it does what it's suppose to do. It's an tool used to control the masses. Keep the general public in order. Recite to them that if they do good things, they will go to a good place. And if they do bad things, they will go to a very bad place. Forever.
Every great empire ever has used religion as a tool.
Constantine and Amenhotep IV of Ancient Egypt (who even went as far as to change his name to Akhenaten for the religion's first monotheistic god "Aten") are both great examples.
Personally, I'm completely content 6 feet under for the rest of time.
But, I guess that's just me.
Oh, and fyi, I wrote a blog about this on my livejournal not too long ago. Glad we have the same taste in rant topics.
I know people use religion to control the masses, but that's not what Christianity was created to do. Also, if you read a lot of theology (philosophy of religion), then you'd come to see that actually whether you are good on earth or not doesn't really matter as much as we think as far as getting into heaven. Even the people we hate and the gravest sinners can end up there. The reward for being good is here, on earth. It's not somewhere off in the distance, it's here. It's now.
I know it's hard to give religion any credit. I still have trouble whenever I hear the word God. I absolutely *hate* what the world has done with it. But there is a difference between the actual philosophy behind it and the way people practice it. There's too much of a disconnect. The philosophy is something I can get behind. The people always end up leaving me feel disgusted.
That said, I completely agree with you about the practice part. Thanks for the discussion!