God, Damn it.

 

Meanwhile, back in the Philippines...

     I’m back, bitches! It’s been too long… What better way to force myself back into the lives of all 7 of the people who actually read this blog than by beating the very dead horse of organized religion.

   And oh, religion, what a rocky road we’ve had. From getting thrown out of sunday school for asking too many difficult questions to dressing up as “Jesus Christ Super Porn Star” for halloween and almost getting beat up by a psychotic Christian girl, we’ve seen some ups and downs over the years. Well… mostly downs, not so much with the ups.

    The facepunch for today goes to all Christian Missionaries in Asia (except Wayne Lee… who never forced his views on me while we were training partners at Chay Yai Gym in Chaing Mai, Thailand). It is absolutely mind blowing to me that, of all the cool ass religions and local shamanistic beliefs available in Asia, people are actually becoming Christians here at an astounding rate.

The Catholic Boat... coming to take you away...

   I mean, if you are going to throw your mind away subscribing to organized religion, at least choose one with cool music or a guy who will make you trip balls in a sweat lodge.

   Seriously though, Asian people are dropping like flies to the lure of Christianity. See, there are a shitload of poor, uneducated people in Asia (Christianity’s most successful market over the last 2000 years), which makes the region ripe for conversion. It doesn’t take a genius with a PHD in Anthropology to realize that if you dangle “eternal salvation” (read: lots of food, a sick house in heaven and no diseases) in front of ignorant people who live in poverty stricken squalor, you’re going to get more than a few takers. Especially if you offer some sort of immediate incentive in this life, like, free food at the end of bible study or rice rations for memorized bible scriptures. Yes, there are actually missionaries in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia who do this.

It's a safe bet he hates your dad, then.

   Anyway, those of you who know me well, know that I am not easily dragged into a conversation about religion these days, especially with Christians. I typically give vague answers to people who pry, because I have learned that trying to explain being a Pantheistic Buddhist who prays to Hindu and Chinese deities to a Christian is like trying to explain quantum mechanics to a sack of dead babies.

           I usually just tell them I’m an Atheist, which is technically true since I don’t believe in a personal god / creator and give short one word answers to any follow up questions, because talking to Christians is like trying to talk to a choose your own adventure book. No matter what option you choose, you invariably end up returning to page 1 (but the bible says…) , getting frustrated, and watching Fraggle Rock instead.

Allah hammachhhhh atta bad gahh! Do not make restaurant here... bad decision!

   One particularly persistent and annoying Korean missionary recently cornered me on a bus ride and lectured me for 15 minutes in broken English and Korean about how I was going to hell unless I changed my ways and accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior. Now, hearing this from a white man is infuriating enough, but hearing it from a fat, prototypical Asian businessman that you are just as likely to find at a KTV joint as a church is downright nauseating.

             He gave me a copy of “The purpose filled life” and asked me to read it and call him when I was finished so we could discuss it. I repeatedly told him I was already forced to read this when I was like, 12, that I would never read it again and that there was nothing to discuss. He gave me his business card and said “Prease read and caw me”.

Thou shalt not kill. Unless it's Muslims and gay people. Then it's ok.

   What was really frustrating is that I posses the verbal agility, knowledge of Christian history and knowledge of comparative religion to destroy any Christian’s belief system in about 20 minutes if I have the inclination to do so. If I have two hours I can usually make them cry. Usually I don’t, because I believe that at certain levels of consciousness and awareness, Christianity and other organized religions can serve a purpose and help people to live a better life if practiced in the right way. With this jackass however, I would have been happy to make him cry about Christianity and then not point him in a more positive spiritual direction just to fuck with him.

          Unfortunately, since this man’s English vocabulary was incredibly limited however, I just had to sit there and listen to him talk in circles about nothing, with no possible recourse. So as my own form of therapy to recover from this traumatic event, I will subject you to the very simple, very potent way I expose Christianity as a complete fraud to anyone who pisses me off by trying to force it down my throat. I hope you will use it liberally for Christian assholes you meet that actually understand the English language.

             We’ll do it in the form of a conversation between a Christian Guy (CG) and Me (Me). Most of CG’s answers and questions come from actual conversations I’ve had, but I reserve the right to spice things up again with some poetic license.

Ok, without further ado…

————–

CG: So, have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?

Me: No. What does personal savior mean, anyway?

CG: It means that Jesus Christ can offer you a personal path to Salvation through belief in him… in the bible, In John Chapter 14 verse 6 Jesus says “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the father, except through me”.

Me: I see. So if I accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior, I can go to heaven?

CG: That’s right!

Me: But how can God know who has accepted him and who hasn’t? What If I say I accept him but really on the inside I don’t, or I can’t… I’m not a very good person.

CG: God is all powerful and all knowing. He’ll know the truth that is in your heart. Luke 12 verse 7 says: “even the hairs on our head are numbered”. God knows everything about us! The bible also says “God is Love”. That means he will love you unconditionally, no matter what you have done.

Me: Wow, that’s nice. I never knew that. Ok… I’ll accept that. But one thing that really bothers me about Christians is that they only believe that the world is 6000 years old. I mean, we have fossils that are older than that.

CG: Actually we can’t be sure of that. Carbon 14 Testing is not 100% accurate and Evolution is just a THEORY, it’s not a fact. We believe that God created the heaven and the earth in 7 days, and that history began when the bible began, in the book of Genesis. You can say that is our Theory. It is just as un-provable as evolution! You know, scientists can’t prove Evolution either…

Me: Wow, I never thought about it that way, I guess they can’t… So anyway, back to heaven. If I want God to let me in, I have to believe in his son, I mean, that’s the only way, right?

CG: Yes.

Me: So, being a good person, doing the right thing, that stuff doesn’t matter right? As long as I believe in Jesus?

CG: Well, when you make Jesus Christ your personal savior, you will become the kind of person who does good things, even if it is difficult for you to change. Philippians 4:13 tells us “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”.

Me: Wow, you know the bible really well. But I’ve heard that you can’t trust the Bible. My friend said that at the Council of Icea-

CG: Nicaea

Me:Yeah, that one. I heard that that meeting happened once 300 years after Jesus died and again 700 years after he died because Christians couldn’t come to an agreement about what the bible said and which books should be included… It wasn’t until after that second meeting that the bible as we know it actually appeared. That’s a long time and a lot of people involved for information to get mixed up, isn’t it?

CG: Well, I’m not exactly sure about that, I just know what a positive difference god has made in my life. But what’s really amazing to me about the Bible is that God worked through men throughout history to bring us his story. He inspired many different writers at different times and places to deliver his message, and then inspired the council to put it together in such a way that would best serve mankind.  God has a plan for everything, even if we don’t understand it.

Me: I see. I guess that’s what they mean when they say the lord works in mysterious ways. It seems kind of inefficient for an all powerful being like God though. Anyway, can you tell me what heaven will be like?

CG: It’s a wonderful place, where all of the believers will go when they die. There is no pain or suffering, and you will live forever in perfect bliss and harmony.

Me: Wait, all the believers? What about Mr. Watson from my Sunday school class. He used to beat me. Will he be there? He believed in Jesus. I don’t want to go to heaven if he is there.

CG: Uhhhhh… well, actually we don’t know exactly what heaven will be like, but the bible tells us that it will be perfect.

Me: Yeah, but it wouldn’t be perfect for me if Mr. Watson is there. It would actually be perfect for me if Mr. Watson goes to hell instead. What will god do about that? We can’t both go to heaven.

CG: Are you serious?

Me: Yes.

CG: I’m sorry, I really don’t know how to answer that… but listen, you should come talk to our Pastor, he answers questions like this all the time and he would love to talk to you!!

Me: That’s ok, maybe another time. Let’s go back to what you were saying earlier, about believing in Jesus being the only way you can go to heaven…

CG: Sure.

Me: Can you tell me more about that? I mean, why? What brought this situation about? Jesus only came 2000 years ago, right? Before Jesus came how did people go to heaven?

CG: Well, before Jesus came, God’s people had the old testament, or the old covenant, which means “old promise” in Ancient Hebrew. Before Jesus came it was more difficult to get into heaven. But after Jesus-

Me: Wait, difficult how? What do you mean?

CG: Well, you had to obey the 10 commandments perfectly, and if you didn’t you had to make a sacrifice to God to repent for your sins.

Me: Wow, what kind of sacrifice?

CG: Well, I’m not sure exactly, Animals sometimes. But there are a lot of different stories of sacrifice and forgiveness in the old testament. God even tested Abraham once by asking him to sacrifice his own Son… but he stopped at the last second and spared him.

Me: Wow, that’s extreme. God wasn’t a very nice guy back then, was he? Isn’t tricking someone into thinking they will have to murder their own son breaking one of the commandments, like thou shalt not lie, or something?

CG: Heh… well, I guess it could be… but god never said for sure that Abraham would have to kill his son… he just said to prepare an alter for the sacrifice.

Me: So if I held a gun to a guys head, and told him I was going to kill him, then said, “just kidding” that wouldn’t actually be a threat, right? I mean that’s how a police officer would see it right? Just joking buddy!!!

CG: :Blank Stare::

Me: Anyway, so, let’s go back to the 10 commandments. What about a lesser commandment, like not having other gods before the god of the bible. I mean, do you really think that a supreme being, perfect in understanding, love and wisdom would be so insecure as to punish us for talking to another god?

CG: Of course he would! The bible says that mankind was created to worship God… So worshiping another god instead is a serious problem for him! You see, there are no “lesser commandments”, all sins are equal in the eyes of god.

Me: Whoa, he’s a stern guy. Stern but fair I guess.

CG: Yeah, I know, right? But anyway, the most important thing you can take from today is that God wanted to make it so that everyone could go to heaven, so he sent his only Son, Jesus, to Earth to suffer for all man kind. When Jesus suffered and died on the cross, he took all of the sins of mankind on his shoulders. Then, by believing in him, we are forgiven of our sins and taken into his arms when we die.

Me: So, he asked us to murder his son, which is a sin, so that he could forgive us for our other sins, instead of just… forgiving us for our sins.

CG: Um…

Me: ::Blank Stare::

CG: Well… Um… You see…

Me: Hold On… Don’t talk for a second… I’m thinking… I’ve got to put all of this in order in my head.

CG: Ok, take your time. (laughs uncomfortably)

Me: Ok, let’s back it up and take it from the very beginning. I want to see if I’ve got this straight… God is an all powerful being, and he is also all knowing… so by that logic he knows before we are even created as a species which ones of us will end up in heaven and which ones will end up in hell.  In the meantime, I should ignore that creating those people who are bound for hell in any case actually serves no purpose since people were created to worship God, and the people who end up in hell, by definition, do not worship God. I should also accept that God realized this ahead of time and allows this course of events leading to eternal torture and suffering in a lake of fire to take place despite the fact that he is an entity of infinite love and mercy.  He also, for reasons he never explains, makes our existence finite, guaranteeing that at some point we will stop worshiping him at death. So, to give us a method of either arriving in heaven or hell, God gave us the “old promise”.  God knew, of course, that we were going to fuck the “old promise” right up, because he is all knowing, but he let us screw that up for a few thousand years anyway, at the expense of thousands of animals and the psychological health of some dude’s son and who knows how many others that were adversely effected by sadistic sacrifice rituals performed to appease him whenever he was pissed off about sins we have committed. Eventually, God got sick of this method, and about 2000 years ago he gave us a new promise so it would be easier for people he already knew were going to heaven to get there… but instead of just forgiving us outright or ignoring the mistakes we make and excusing them as part of our destructive nature, which he also gave us, he sends his only son to be tortured by us, which is a horrible sin in and of itself, so that he can as a consequence forgive us for the other horrible sins we have committed. After that, to make sure that everyone knew about this new promise, he gave fragmented pieces of the story to a bunch of different people in different places at different times, who he knew were going to disagree with each other and mis-translate his words into several different languages and then meet 700 years later to choose which rules they would follow and which parts of his story they would allow to be distributed to the general public. He did this so that mankind could have a more understandable version of events, in spite of the fact that he is all powerful and could have just zapped down a complete version in every language known to man when he sent his son to be murdered. I mean, he could have sent the two as a package deal ready for distribution to all nations, but he didn’t, because he prefers to work through the horribly inefficient and usually bloody processes of mankind. Fast forward 2000 years. Here I am, a good person. I do good things, help people and live a good life. In fact, you might say I am a better person than God himself was before he made his “new promise”. I don’t torture animals, and I don’t trick people into thinking they are going to have to kill their sons. I also don’t do anything that would be really “animal sacrifice” worthy like stealing, and definitely nothing “Son Sacrifice” worthy like murdering. Although God is an enlightened supreme being, perfect in wisdom, love and understanding, if I don’t completely throw rationality and logic, which he also gave me when he created me, right out the window and believe in the aforementioned 2000 year old poorly translated summery of the events I just described, and I don’t accept the messianic figure that shows up somewhere halfway through said story as my “personal savior”, there is no way I am going to heaven, and this God of infinite love, mercy and understanding will cast me into a lake of fire where I will be tortured for all eternity, which must have been his plan all along since he created me and he knows everything that will happen before it happens. Is that fairly accurate?

CG: ::Blank State::

Me: It’s cool dude, I don’t really want to go to heaven anyway. I assume it will be full of Christians like you and that is actually my idea of hell. I want to go to wherever Ghandi, John Lennon and Carl Sagan went. I’m fairly certain it’s not the same place you are talking about. Seriously though, good talk… good talk…

————-

Seriously dude... Just admit that God created earth and that it doesn't rotate around the Sun and we'll totally let you go...

    You see, Christians are horribly predictable. They will almost all give the same or similar answers to the questions above. Unbeknownst to them, each question is a trap, designed to allow them to make a statement about God which they will wrap in euphemisms like “stories of sacrifice and forgiveness” which is euphemistic Christian horse shit code for “killing your son so that God won’t be pissed off”. Then, you strip their statements of euphemism, put the events in chronological order, and feed it back to them.

    You will also notice that at the beginning of the conversation, I mostly agreed to him and played to his ego. This establishes me as an ally, and as someone who is no threat to his belief system. This will bring his guard down a bit, and make the first part of the question and answer session go more smoothly. Slowly, increase the breadth and the severity of the holes you punch in his story until you deliver the final big rant.

Now given out to children at all Catholic sunday school lessons.

    By not challenging him directly or being too verbally caustic in the beginning while still exposing holes in his arguments, you allow him to start questioning his belief system on his own before you put the hammer down. Then, when you deliver that final death blow, he is already in “WTF” mode and ready to have his belief system totally raped.

    I guarantee if you follow this method in even a loose fashion, the person you talk to will eventually never go to church again. It might take 6 months, but the seeds of discontent and critical thinking you plant will eventually grow large enough to make him or her seriously question, and later abandon the beliefs they hold so dear.

Stay back Matilda!! You're going to catch Satanic!

         Do use this method with caution however with people who seem psychologically unstable, as destroying someone’s belief system can have very real psychological consequences. I actually watched a guy have a panic attack in a Starbucks in China one time when I pulled this stunt.

   Good luck and happy hunting!!