Pulpit Time

[pasithea]

I'm going to paste this here. It meanders a bit, but I think that generally for off-the-cuff and no editing, it's pretty decent writing.

It's a response to an e-mail I received, which was in response to someone's comment that

"Gays have the same choice as straights. To marry someone of the opposite sex."

I responded:

"Just because being straight makes you miserable and unhappy doesn't mean everyone else should be as masochistic as you are. "

Must have hit a nerve because I got the following response:

Do you normally like to assume how other people feel? Statistically, according the the Pew Research study, the very highest levels of happiness are reported among people who were middle and upper class, married, Republicans, who have children and are regularly involved spiritual activity. Anyways, I hope the best of everyone. I hope homosexuals are happy even if they don't want me to be. My happiness doesn't come from someone else giving me permission.

And then I went off on this tear which sounds really good to me at 3AM after many long days at work. Warning! The stuff behind the cut starts snarky but rapidly degenerates into the most ultra-hippie supernova lovefest you've ever seen. View it at your own peril

It's called a witty retort. This is called sarcasm. And now. A more sincere response.

Of course, they're the group that self-reports they're happy. Kind of have to, don't you. Take all those little niggling disappointments with life, swallow them, and pretend they don't exist. God's just testing you.

Besides. It's easy to feign happiness when you can throw all the ugliness and unfair things in the world as 'God's will'. People starving in Africa? They'll have a happy place in heaven so it's okay if their lives on Earth are short and miserable and not as comfortable as yours. You did so much to deserve your privileged life, didn't you? Why. You were born here. God must love you more than them.

But it's all a farce, isn't it? You aren't really happy. You're afraid. Afraid you're not good enough for God, afraid that if you don't do everything just right, you won't go to heaven. Your afterlife will be just as miserable as this life. Religion, to the trained eye, is an admission of unhappiness. Trying to enact laws that keep others from reaching for what they perceive as happiness is even more telling.

I know you won't like what I just said. If you're still reading, you're probably quite sickened by the 'twisted words'. You've turned off thinking about them. Can't let them through the armor.

I've been there. I grew up Southern Baptist in rural Oklahoma in the 70s. Racism ran deep, to say nothing of homophobia. But... I read the bible. All of God's wrath and all of God's love and... Here's what (after many many years of thinking about it) I came to conclude.

We are all flawed and imperfect beings. The best we can do is try to do what's right and live a moral life. Help others when we can, and do as little harm as we can and... That's really got to be it.

The people who wrote, compiled, and transcribed the bible were every bit as flawed and scared as we are. They had no particular gift for translating God's word better than your own heart can. Or, even if they could, for most of the history of man, the bible was limited to a very small portion of the world's population. People in China, Africa, the new world. None of them were given the opportunity to follow the right set of rules, were they?

For that matter.. What is the right set? Baptist? Episcopalian? Methodist? Mormon? Catholic? Jewish? Muslim? Hindu? Buddhist? Everyone has a different rule book. There's some core stuff that's the same in almost all of them though, that can be boiled down to one rule: Love.

That is the only truth. It's easy to forget. Or rather, we love so much, so fiercely, that we sometimes blind ourselves to the harm we may do others. We forget that rule applies to all of God's creations, and it can be very hard sometimes. Hard to turn the other cheek. Hard to accept that even your worst enemy is still a living breathing human being who has a family, friends, joys and sorrows. Someone who is every bit as much a part of God as you are.

I don't slight you if you truly are happy. I don't hate you. I fear you. You have more power than me. You can hurt me. You can take my loved one of well over a decade from me. Your heart seems hard to one who has never wronged you. Can you truly believe that is God's will?

If God is just, he just judge us fairly. Whether Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, or Jew. Each of us on our own merits. Did we lead a good life? Did we love and laugh and enjoy this beautiful world? Did we love others, live and let live?

That must be enough for God. Anything less is petty, arbitrary, and cruel and I cannot believe a universe so beautiful and full of wonders to explore could be created by such a small being. I would rather spend eternity in Hell than grovel at the feet of one who would punish all who tried to do right as best they could but did not follow the exact letter of a law.

I am not Christian or Jew or any of the other million myriad religions, or even Atheist or Agnostic. I'm pieces of all of them and none of them, but ultimately, I am a human being. I've drank deep from the springs of joy and the wells of sorrow. I've had good times and bad, and there's the funny thing. I've treasured it all. Every minute, even the bad parts, it's been worth it just to be alive. If God is so strict, I'll go to Hell without regret. Though.. I know I won't. This IS heaven. Right here, right now. This moment of being alive. God is right here, all around us. Paradise is right here, if we'd all just stop fighting and fearing, we'd see that.

Peace and be well.

and in summation... If you need me, I'll be levitating at the top of a nearby mountain.

Comments

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

So what is the point of Jesus' death and resurrection, the very basis of Christianity, then?

And I don't believe YHWH is loving, so we're at odds from the start. I believe he's arbitrary, capricious, vindictive and blood-thirsty.

[zeeth_kyrah]

The point, if you believe that the ancient Jews and modern Christians worship the same God, is to teach God what being human is like, and thereby provide perspective on why these teeny little nothings can't Get It Right. And from there, make possible the ability for humans to be redeemed. When Christ died and went to Hell, he opened the gates to let the sinners back out. Most Christians forget that part of their theology. Christ went to Hell, not Limbo, not Heaven. The unblemished sacrifice went where Bad People go, not because he was bad, but because that's where people went if God was mad at them for any reason (like breaking any of the incredibly complex set of rules that Jews were supposed to live under, even if it was for the sake of greater love).

I am willing to believe that the singular god of the Hebrew faith was a war god who took over their pantheon and destroyed the others, down to his own feminine counterpart, because that was the nature of success in war in those days: nothing stands against you except yourself, and what's left isn't worth mentioning and should be destroyed to the point of never being remembered. However, in doing so, that god also took on the task of representing those things which the destroyed gods had themselves represented. "Crops and harvest? Who do we turn to? God. Family, babies, children, all that? God. Love and hate and war and death and joy and plenty and famine and laughter and on and on and on... Who do we have to turn to that belongs to us? God. YHWH knows it all and sees it all and can do it all, because there isn't anyone else. God brings us victory and ensures our people will continue no matter what, so we stick with him and there isn't anyone else for us."

And now we're entering a time when Love is the highest good, where the victory of all is greater than the victory of one. Where lifting up another lifts you up. God saw it coming and had to change. After taking on the task of being all things to one people, there is included a shift in perspective. Whether that shift is in how the people view their god, or in how that god views himself, is a matter for debate; but it produced Emmanuel bar Joseph, the carpenter's son, who loved people for themselves and broke the rules that got in the way of love, because that's what he learned and what he taught himself. And along the way, informed the relationship between God and Man, producing the necessary change in that relationship (whether from one side or both) to allow for the opportunity of redemption.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Most Christians forget that part of their theology.

Which is a bit weird, given that it's in the Apostles' Creed and everything:

He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again.

I like your theology, by the way.

[zeeth_kyrah]

Thanks. I'm not exactly Christian these days, but I do spend a lot of time thinking about the dynamics of a multiverse, and how spiritual entities and experiences figure into that.