By Brian McKay
Jesus Christ was cool. Actually, he was super cool. He was charitable, compassionate, a rebel, a freedom fighter and preached forgiveness and redemption. While not sure if I believe he truly existed or not, I still think he was the shit. His close affiliation with Mary Magdalene was the stuff that would ruin modern day political figures. She certainly wouldn't make it into the current evangelical fold without a ton of gossip, at a minimum. Jesus just didn't give a shit. He loved. Period. The one thing that really pissed Jesus off was greed. He spoke of his passion for helping the poor and the absolute good of giving up one’s wealth to help others.
I would be happy to live even close to his example and doubt I could ever match it, even with all of the miracles stripped out.
The flip side of Jesus is found in modern day religious freedom laws. These laws might even typify the whole evangelical movement for what they are; the exact opposite of Jesus Christ. Where Jesus Christ didn't show fear, these laws do. He didn't show intolerance but these laws do. Caring was a part of the life of Christ, but these laws are about supremacy. Jesus was opposed to greed but religious freedom laws show that the main concern of evangelicals is simply in negating what is different from them. There is no compassion or charity present in religious freedom laws, just fear, ignorance and intolerance.
That's it. They are in no way representative of real Christianity, unless Christianity is solely based on the reading of Leviticus in such a way that you just skip the passages that call you out too. Maybe that is what it has become though. It seems the New Testament teachings lost out to the angry and irrational god of the Old Testament some time ago. It is no longer morality or principles that matter, only satisfying the need for outrage at anything you either fear or once did and now wish to hide.
Why is it even called Christianity, when The Angry Worshipers of the God of the Burning Bush, Destroying Cities, Ordering Fathers to Kill Their Sons, Covering Job with Boils and Flooding the Entire Goddamn Planet for a 600-Year-Old Guy That Made a Big Ass Boat, is more appropriate?
Just to be blunt, anything based on selective reading of Leviticus means you are an asshole that needs a purpose. Thomas Jefferson was brilliant and a hero of mine. He wrote his own Bible and threw all of that shit out. Jefferson just kept the good works of Christ as he thought it was a good example for all. Even though he didn’t believe in the divinity of Christ, he really liked the message. This is the guy that wrote your Declaration of Independence. He might be smart.
So we have concluded that these people are not about religion. Are they then about freedom in any way? No. All they are about is the subversion of freedom to ideology based on bad interpretation of a theology. They represent the placement of a specific theology that must prevail over others in order for them to realize purpose and for that contrived theology to exist. If anything less than that theological bent exists in society, they feel we are submitting to the Devil.
Freedom doesn't come from expanding your rights to be a douche bag to others. It comes from expanding the rights of all people to b happy and fulfilled.
There is no devil. There is only being human, and if you wish to limit the freedom of others based upon the fact that we are simply human, don’t expect outrage and the accompanying sympathy to last.
Your religion doesn't allow gay marriage? Great. Don't fucking marry someone of the same sex. As far as freedom? Why the hell do you care what someone else does?
When I was younger, evangelicals protested a play in my community that had full frontal nudity. It was pulled and never shown by the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. Even as a kid you could deduce, “Why don’t you just not attend?” It was always about asserting power more than anything else.
The very definition of freedom is in letting go and allowing others their interpretation of the world. Let individuals do as they wish so long as it is not injurious to others. Focus on this end and freedom will continue to advance. We have a long way to go until we reach true freedom and democracy the United States. Why would anyone want to slow that process?
Oh that’s right… they are insecure and scared.
But, “I have to make them a cake”. Fuck you. Make the fucking cake. Commerce is not an endorsement of morality. It means you’re smart enough to go out and attempt to make a profit. Regardless what I personally believe or vote, if I can make a great profit baking cakes for men marrying their lawn mowers, I will find a vendor for little lawn mowers to go on the top of the cakes. You are bitching not because of some moral position but because you are an insecure loser that wants the freedom to tell others they are less important than you and damned to hell.
Stop the sanctimonious crap right now. The rest of us know what it really is and you are certainly not engendering anyone’s respect outside of your limited community. All you are doing is showing the small mindedness you live by.
When evangelicals speak about how the world is becoming more wicked as more and more Millennials move to rejecting religion outright, one has to wonder. Do they know that acting like complete spoiled children tends to drive people of any amount of logic away? If Millennials are leaving religion behind, it is because of asinine bullshit like religious freedom laws that are pushing them there.
There is no true freedom in these laws unless the only freedom that matters is the one that allows you to act like a pure prick to others. That is all they are, a license for pure prickness to be utilized by insecure, ignorant people as a way to further victimize those that are currently struggling in our society.
Listen. Just go bash on the observatory in New Mexico in the works for the last few decades now and leave everyone else be so that they might actually engage in intellectual arguments and reasoning. Listen. Just go bash on the observatory in New Mexico in the works for the last few decades now and leave everyone else be so that they might actually engage in intellectual arguments and reasoning.
That'll never happen and I accept everyone for their beliefs.
Brian McKay is a co-founder of zenruption. Being that he is super tired at 3am he will be heading off to bed now. Please don't. watch the “naughty” channels with the Wells Fargo card. We will set it up to work best for you then.
Feature photo courtesy of Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license