Supple:
God doesn’t like me much, and I totally understand why. I realize it once a week when I go to church and we have “silent confession” time and all I think about is how I haven’t even thought about God since the week before, and really don’t intend to until the next week. He doesn’t like me because every week when I pray in church, some little fucking gremlin inside of me laughs at how much sinning I intend to do this upcoming week, and how I plan to ask forgiveness again the next week at church as I listen to my little gremlin giggle and plan another 7 days of fuckup-age.
And the reason I keep listening to that little gremlin is that my deepest, most natural intuition agrees with him.
It’s not that I’m a soldier for the dark side, or anything. If you were to see me in the videogame “Fable,” you wouldn’t be sure if your computer was highlighting me to attack me or not, because who the fuck knows if I’m good or not?
Well, maybe I do like listening to those things that gremlin whispers to me. But I’m not evil as we see it. I don’t take joy in babies getting run over, I’ve never raped a chick, I don’t have an evil cackle, and I don’t ask people to play “burnout” with me. But it’ll be a while until God smiles at me. Because I plan on continuing this sin-binge I’ve been on for a good 70 more years.
So why don’t I just go atheist? For one, because I still believe in God, but mostly because I totally like Christianity. Maybe there are some controversially evil things the Bible mentions that I, just like you, like to ignore, (racial and gender shit) but all in all, most of the people in it were groovy guys. Jesus rocked, you know? He said some peaceful things that we often like to discuss when we’re full of potsmoke and Doritos. He came to this world and laid down some ideas that I think we all agree with intrinsically – being groovy to one another, and whatnot.
Notice I never said Jesus doesn’t like me. But then again, there’s God. Jesus came to earth like the groovy younger brother, with a flower in his hair, a baby on his lap, and a smile on his face. God, on the other hand, doesn’t fucking like me. I can’t remember the 10 Commandments exactly because I was distracted by being 9 years old when I learned them, but I get the general idea of it. A good portion of it is “Jesus-esque,” the stuff that sounds like it came out of a Bill and Ted movie and everybody can agree about as they spoon lovingly. (I’ll bet Jesus loved to spoon) But then again, there’s everything else. Stuff that has to do with constant praise of God, of giving yourself to him and of living your life through him. WTF, God? This is what doesn’t make sense to me.
Put yourself in God’s shoes. (er…sandals.) From what I hear from the church, our primary goal in life is to be as God-centered as we can – sending missionaries all over the world to make them like us. God requests us to give him constant praise and adoration, and that is my downfall. Why do you want that, God? Why?
It’s like if I went out and splurged all my money on the most high-tech, state of the art ant-farm that money can buy. Why would I do this? Not so all the ants can sit sideways in their really thin almost 2 dimensional world looking up at me and giving me their thanks and praise for buying them. I’m not that insecure about myself. The reason I went out and bought that ant farm is so I could watch the ants do their ant shit – enjoying waking up every day and being an ant. I wouldn’t especially want them to do anything specific, just whatever ants do. I brought you into this world, now go. Yes, yes, you’re welcome for buying you, now just go forth and be ants, and be groovy to one another. Enjoy being in this life I gave you as much as you can.
Because, what’s gained by a Nun being so devoted to God that she has to be a fucking Nun for the rest of her life? Really, I support the fact that she’s getting out there and converting people to a religion which I generally agree with, but she’s not enjoying the ride God gave her. She’s not allowed to love, to rock, to listen to gangster rap and really want to get naked for some guy.
So why is pot a sin? Why is wanting to get nakedly naked with a girl and make all kinds of bad decisions a sin? Why is showing some midriff a sin? Yeah, maybe it degrades womankind, but it made that lonely little 8th grade girl a little happier with herself, and I’m not about to tell her she can’t do that. I’m completely fine with it, if it’s what makes her happy. I’m fine with everything, really, if it makes you happy. I’m down with bisexuals, trisexuals, homo-sapiens, carcinogens, hallucinogens, men, and Pee Wee Herman.
But me being down with you liking these things is wrong. A sin. Maybe I enjoy these things, but from what I hear, they’re sent by the devil to tempt me. I’m convinced they’re good, but Pastor Tyler tells me they’re BAAAD and I shouldn’t like them. But you know what? They make me happy, and isn’t that what Christianity is all about? As I see it, the devil got screwed. I took all of his tools of evil and badness and I enjoyed them, with no evil side effects.
And so what if I desperately want to have sex before marriage? I’ll bet if I ever do, that girl will want to too. And if it makes us both happy, it’s a well thought out decision, and no harm will come of it, why not? Because we’ll regret it (even though we don’t think we will) when we’ve finally settled down into marriage? That’ll be something I confront then. For now, it’s what makes me happy in life, and what reason is there to live than to be happy? (After re-reading this post, that sentence was one hell of a stoner thing to say.)
So I’ll go on as it is. For now. Eventually when I see my eventual death coming, I’ll sack up and start being really religious. So will you, probably. They say that even people who convert in their last seconds are accepted into heaven, so what makes me want to be good now? Fuck it, I’ll convert later. For now, I’m going to live it up. Yeah, I know this isn’t going to trick God. I know I’m shafting him by planning on converting late in my life, and so does he. But that’s something for he and I to discuss once I’m dead. For now, I plan on enjoying this antfarm God bought for me. Hopefully you do too.
(Sorry if this post wasn’t very funny. Quite frankly, I get sick of funny. Funny isn’t that great. You know what I’m realizing is great? True sincerity. Grooviness. And Rock.)
When I sat down to write this post, I intended it to be about my roommate. Whoops.
Posted by: Supple at January 3, 2007 5:33 PMWouldn't it be great if, instead of dismissing all of Christian theology on the grounds of Pastor Tyler's sermon, you researched it yourself? Ignoring a situation because of complicated parts should stop being American.
Posted by: at January 3, 2007 6:40 PMI don't dismiss all, just everything I see as dismissable. Don't ask me why.
Posted by: Supple at January 3, 2007 7:02 PM1. Nuns started as a high fashion thing to do back in the early part of the last millennium. They remain for the same reason as the pope, to be icons. Or in Christian terms, to be beacons. Today, nuns make the celibacy decision for familial reasons mixed with personal drive. Like pre-arranged marriages, they sound shitty unless you're accustomed to it.
2. God doesn't demand glorification, just faith and love. Glorification is more of a human decision, like a show of thanks for God's mercy. Look in the bible at the tricky wording and you'll see what I mean. God isn't very tyrannical. Or at least, he grew less and less tyrannical throughout the bible, curiously... at just about the same pace mortal leaders were starting to grow less brutish. Think if you were trying to get people to worship you, you couldn't demand popularity. Rather, you'd do good stuff for them, keep things in order and all that, and you'd GET popular.
3. The Christian lifestyle is what's most important, for the exact same reasons the martial arts lifestyle is more important than the ass-kicking. Teachers of either are trying to spread peace, to prepare followers to defend peace. Like the key to a good offense. And offense in either case is proliferation. Proliferation with the intent to increase defense. A beautiful balance, a simple idea, almost one so easy even a person could have come up with it. But that's. Ridiculous.
4. There's so many fucking religions. You don't have to be a Husker fan just cause you live in Nebraska. Most of the time I don't even give a shit about college football, really and metaphorically. By that I mean, most of the time our brains are busy with the more immediate.
5. I was lucky to have some bad-ass exposure to Christianity growing up. Lots and lots and lots. And there's a reason for learning as much as you can about it, cause if you stop at a certain point, you're just not done. You wind up fearing the wrong things simply cause you don't know not to. The Bible's thick and covers just about every base. Every base. Just when you're about to get mad at the bible for something, anything, there's a page that apologizes for it. In other words, that gremlin inside of you isn't a schizophrenic counter-identity.
6. Hell no I ain't telling who I am. Making this list is not hot.
Posted by: at January 3, 2007 8:03 PMBut I realize it's sort of cowardly to post anonymously. So okay that was me. Kind of. Unless you think it'd be motivation enough not to have crazy sex with me, in which case it was Cuddle. I didn't post that first anonymous one though. Just the list. Again, unless you didn't find the author's voice in that list incredibly attractive, in which case it was Cuddle.
Posted by: Towel at January 3, 2007 8:10 PMi love schizophrenia!
I basically see a lot of words. You can put your words in whatever order you want, but don't think you are going to make me change mine.
fuck the jews
Posted by: joel at January 3, 2007 8:11 PMI hope no khazaks come along to crush you. You might not see them coming.
Posted by: Naimul at January 3, 2007 8:56 PMHey blankman, let people believe what they want. The biggest assholes are the ones that think their opinions are the only ones who matter. Let others think what they want about religion unless you want to have an intellegent discussion, which is probably totally gay anyway. Rhymed.
Posted by: Rob at January 4, 2007 12:22 AMI really wanted to forget my comment ever happened, so I self-consciously hope by blankman you mean that first anonymous person. If so, don't bother reading my defense.
Defense: Cause even as religious as bullets #2, 3, and 5 sound, just remember I'm not any kind of Christian. Those bullets aren't, either. I cite the bible, I equate Christianity to Kung Fu, and I call the bible ambivalent (in so many words). It's just information about Christianity confined to the Christian realm of thought.
Posted by: Towel at January 4, 2007 1:56 PMthere's a lot here. i would like to talk sometime.
something to ponder...if Jesus is so awesome and amazing (which He absolutely is)how can God be anything other...considering they are one in the same...
"anyone who has seen Me [Jesus] has seen the Father" John 14:9b
i'm guessing you grew up in a catholic church...maybe explore some different demoninations (spelling...?)
God is amazing. that's why we worship...
Posted by: samara at January 13, 2007 10:45 PM