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| I'm sure it'll sink in any day now. |
I don't think I'm being at all hyperbolic when I say that shoving this shit down the throats of children is psychological torture. And honestly it's not just children. There was this dude at the group home where I used to work who had gruesome delusions and hallucinations of demons and hell. The house director, an evangelical Christian, thought maybe we shouldn't discourage this, as it might help him "act right." The people at our group home had demons enough and then the door-to-door God salesmen would come and extort them with threats of eternal torment. They came with free Bibles to say "Here, follow all the laws in this book or else you're going to hell. PS, it's literally impossible to follow all the rules at once. Have fun guessing which ones result in eternal fire. You can make the check out to cash."
I remember being in second grade getting ready to make confession. We watched a film strip about the different types of sin - how venial sins made Jesus sad inside you, but mortal sins made Jesus dead inside you. And if you committed a mortal sin (which could be as serious as killing someone or as trivial as missing mass on a Sunday) and died before receiving absolution, you were going to hell. We were 8. What teacher can threaten children with eternal pain beyond their worst imagining and still worship a god that cruel?
There is a lot I can respect about faith. And I can agree to disagree about a lot of things. But what kind of Christian can cram this filth down people's throats and still claim that god is love? It's cruel perversion.
I can understand the temptation to believe that hell is real. I'd love to believe that Hitler and the Nazis are roasting in the fires of hell right now. But if some evangelical Christians have it right, all those Jews they tortured and murdered are roasting right along with them. And if my 2nd grade teacher is to be believed, those Jews are being fried on the same spit as all the little children who missed mass and then died before making confession. Is this Christianity? Is this what people actually think of the god they worship?
If the Bible is right and "God is love" (1 John 4:8), how can God allow the eternal torment of children? If the Bible is right and "love does no harm to its neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law" (Romans 13:10), how can the law also allow great harm to come to people for loving people of the wrong gender? If the Bible is right and "There is no fear in love... the one who fears is not made perfect in love" (1 John 4:18), then why is it considered desirable to be a "god fearing" person?
i sing of Olaf glad and big, ee cummings
i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or
his wellbelovéd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but--though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments--
Olaf(being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds,without getting annoyed
“I will not kiss your fucking flag”
straightway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)
but--though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation’s blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skilfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat--
Olaf(upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
“there is some shit I will not eat”
our president,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died
Christ(of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf,too
preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.
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