The World Is Barren Enough
The world is barren enough.
It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.
And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?
With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate… this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness — this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness — share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” –Keith Olbermann
I could not agree more. The world is indeed barren enough.
One of the reasons I do not identify myself as Christian is because of this very issue–no, not gay marriage, but the underlying hypocrisy. People cherry-pick quotes from the Bible to justify whatever hate they feel like slinging today. They quote the Old Testament’s jealous, insecure god (with a need for praise greater than an adolescent male’s, as Ruth Hurmence Green so memorably put it) and conveniently forget that Christ hung out with the hookers and the lepers, the people he wasn’t supposed to even touch as a good Jewish boy. Those Christians who do espouse love (pun definitely intended) are so few and far between, and they usually meet bad ends at the hands of the established hierarchy. The religion (as most monotheistic religions do) relies on a division of Good vs. Evil, Us vs. Them, Kill Them First, Hate Hate Hate.
Then there’s the threat of hell if you don’t toe the line. Look, the divine love that engenders all is not going to send you to Hell. You can (and probably will) create your own hell while you live and after you die; that’s well within your purview as a human being. But God(s) doesn’t need Hell.
What parent WANTS to torture their child endlessly? A very, very bad one. And I cannot believe the Divine is a bad parent. A sarcastic one sometimes, a parent with an adolescent sense of humor sometimes, but not a bad one. Not a sadistic one, to punish us over and over again for choices made with “free will”. The fiction of eternal punishment is a lie told to keep us paying, praying, afraid, isolated, and powerless.
The world is indeed so very barren enough. Every chance of love and commitment should be cherished. Not bashed in the head by hypocrites (and let’s not even talk about the Mormon church, those who brought us polygamy and the Mountain Meadows Massacre, bankrolling this hatred and hypocrisy about the “sanctity” of marriage). It constantly amazes me that so many so-called Christians, as well as others who consider themselves “religious” or “spiritual”, have entirely forgotten the “do unto others” and the “love thy neighbor” parts of their holy one’s teachings.
I guess it must be easier to hate. But isn’t there ENOUGH hatred in the world already? Can we not add to it? Please? The fire is large and it will take so long to burn itself out. We don’t need to fuel it more.
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November 11th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Amen…thats all I have to say to that.
There is a man at work that preaches endlessly about the damnation and that the bible is the ONLY word etc but is looking for an out of marriage relationship. Interesting no?
November 11th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
I should make the above statement more clear-HE is married but looking for an out of marriage sex relationship.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
I loved your use of the term “religions of submission” in the Dante books. How true that is. I have the unfortunate circumstance to live in the so-called Bible Belt and see this sadistic hypocrisy at work first-hand every single day. It always reminds me of Chris Rock’s line in Dogma, “Jesus would roll over in his grave if he knew some of the s**t that is done in his name.”
I’m personally proud to admit I’m not a Christian (nor a member of any other organized religion). I can take my medicine straight from the bottle without the filter of some man-made god. Not that I don’t believe in the concept of Divine. What most of these hypocritical idiots don’t realize is, it resides within all of us, with or without a doctrine.
Yeah, live and let live, they say … as long as it looks, talks, and acts just like us.
btw – don’t you love Keith Olbermann?
November 12th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Hell is also a Medieval creation. Jesus had nothing to do with it. Eternal damnation was a creation of the Church as it spread throughout Europe to terrify those pesky pagans into converting… or else. Before Christianity became the official religion of Rome, Christ was the Good Shepherd, the benevolent Father. Then he became Caesar of the Universe, and the oppression of women and all other “non- desireables” began. Woman were originally PRIESTS, but then were not allowed to take communion in the first basillica ( St. Peters) It’s amazing the sorts of dirt you dig up just studying basic art history. Hate and fear are control and nothing says power, like damning someone else.
November 12th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
The Bible does have some good quotes, but rare and far between.
I am Christian in that I believe in Jesus, but, I believe God has infinite shapes and can be in multple shapes at the same time. So I call myself a Christian Witch.
I have found in my years that some of the worst hypocrites go to church faithfully. I had my first example at age 8 when my Dad of 38 had his 1st heart attach, and his very church going boss would not hire him back. It was the best thing since sliced bread as his next job actually had paid vacation & sick leave & a wonderful retirement (State Highway Dept in OR). Also, even at 8 I knew his boss was not a happy person.
Your books make me happy Lilith. Please keep it up & HURRY!
November 12th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Speak it! Equal rights for ALL not some.