This site is a hoot: http://www.ishwar.com/ It's supposedly a multi-religion site about loving your god, whoever he may be. Of course it's mainly Christians that go there. And how open-minded of them to acknowledge that all gods that are loved are equal. If they're all equal how can their god be the one true one? They can only be equal if they're all false!
So anyway...
It has a poll, do you love god? Naturally, I voted, just to see what the results were. The clever little site has rigged a pop-up text box to ask me why. So I answered:
God is a fairy tale, and I don't love fairy tales. Even if God weren't an amoral jerk who punishes the innocent, allows us to slaughter each other by the millions in his name, and "speaks" so ambiguously nobody can tell which of his holy "texts" is correct, I wouldn't love him because supposedly the purpose of having a god is to have someone who loves YOU. If he's an almighty omnipotent omniscent omnipresent non-corporeal force, he shouldn't have such a weak ego that he needs to be told how great he is every day. I don't love narcissists!
Apparently we are no supposed to tap into our oxytocin reservoirs to get flushed with ecstacy whenever we praise any god, not just jebus and his genocidal daddy.
The sadder thing, is that the pop-up also asks the cretins who vote "yes" why they love God. Here's a sampling of some of the pathetic answers:
- anonymous loves God because God is there
- AC loves God because he keeps me on the right path
- because whenever I feel that I am at my lowest point, he shows up just in time to save me
- because he has given me everything
- because God gave me life. He runs the world, and he wants good things to happen
- because he knew about me even before my grandparents were born
- because he is my father
- he offers hope, meaning and purpose to my life
- because he shows love in very strange ways. But now I am starting to see them. Even through a [sic] mp3 sound. It's still a good sign.
- because he died on the cross for my sins (also, because he sent his son to die on the cross for my sins)
- because God is love
- because He/She is love!
- because I am a sinner but he forgives me. I love God most of all because he is my light and saviour
- because he loves me the way I am, even if I don't deserve it
- Becoz he loved me 1st
- because he never gave up on me!
- because he's jesus duh!
- because he died for me, so I live for him!
Another common thread is the immaturity of the posts. At times it sounds like lovestruck teens talking about Justin Bieber (or Bobby Sherman, or Elvis, or Frank Sinatra, or Caruso...) Other times they sound like little kids saying why they love Santa Claus: "Because he gave me everything!"
The most pathetic ones, in my opinion, are the self-berating posts. These poor souls have been convinced that they are worthless sinners, and that they really lucked out in having god forgive them. Why on earth should someone love an abuser who tells them they're a piece of crap then turns around and says it's okay that they're crap?
"You're a horrible horrible person and you're worth nothing and everything you do or think sucks and I know this because I'm super wonderful and so fantastic you're totally unworthy of my attention so I really should kill you... I should but I won't! I'll punish Jesus here instead. He doesn't mind. It'll only be for a few days anyway."
Uhhh gee thanks!
Well I guess being a better person really isn't a goal here. Nothing you could do could change your initial status from "sinner" to "pretty nice person." And nothing you could do to redeem yourself could match the ultimate redemption of Christ to take on your sins for you. So why bother trying to be a better person? Why worry about the commandments, morality, taking care of yourself or others?
I can think of only one word to describe this theology: mindfuck. What a messed up way to live.
3 comments:
What those responses really show is that you're looking at people from the bottom 10% or so of the mental-coherence scale. They may indeed be selfish, but that's an incidental. The striking thing is how trite and clichéed their responses are, and their thought processes are probably pretty much the same. One can imagine that a lot of their conversational repertoire consists of catch-phrases from TV commercials or sports commentary.
The whole concept of the site shows that it's not by or for people who think coherently about religion. It's by and for people who prefer feel-good babble to thinking.
Somebody has to be in that bottom 10%, and this is what it looks like.
Ugh, even the layout of that site reads like a teenage girl's fan page for some terribly talentless prepubescent popstar.
"Do you love God?" is a dumb question. How can I love somebody else's childish fantasy?
"Somebody has to be in that bottom 10%, and this is what it looks like."
Where I live, god-soaked south Florida, these people would be the bottom 75%.
http://darwin-killed-god.blogspot.com/
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