It would be mostly accurate if I were to say that I am on the whole a peaceful person. Sometimes inanimate objects can wind me up as can easy viewing TV but I tend to avoid the later and give the former a good kicking if they mess me about.
Religion can be a touchy subject as well.
I was on the train the other morning and happened to be sitting next to an American (or Canadian) who spent the first thirty minutes on the phone running down his boss and then extolling his own virtues. Nothing particularly wrong in that I suppose. Perhaps a little immature I thought given that the guy seemed to be in his early fifties. He wrapped up the conversation with: ‘God bless.’ and then: ‘In the name of Jesus.’
Amen, I thought.
He then got out his Bible and started reading a section of Psalms. Which for the unenlightened is in the Old Testament. The Old Testament being a collection of Jewish books about Jewish people which was borrowed by Christians about 1700 years ago and never given back. Jewish people don’t tend to have a lot of time for Jesus nor the faith that grew around someone’s belief that the world was about to end and that Jesus being resurrected meant life after death was on the cards. I almost asked this guy why he was reading Psalms. But already knew the answer, ‘Because it tells me that Jesus was the messiah.’
Rubbish, I might have been inclined to answer. There is no mention of a messiah that will die crucified a convicted criminal anywhere in the Old Testament. Of course nobody reads it so they would not know. All they do is listen to caped guys paraphrase the bits they like to hear.
But I didn’t say a word.
The next morning I was sitting behind two completely different guys that were talking about their children. From what I could make out one of them who I will call Matt for ease of story telling, had a two year old and a four year old. He was telling his mate that he had just started attending church a couple times a month.
Matt had no qualms about stating his motivation for going to church was in his wanting to get his kids into the local church sponsored school. Not that the Church had any direct sway but he had it on good authority that they had considerable sway behind closed doors.
I was just thinking to myself that going to church in such a manner would only be useful if the people running the church knew you were there so they could sway for your children. When Matt added that he was one of the people that had volunteered to lay out the Prayer books and Bibles.
That would probably get him noticed I thought. And then I thought what a weird old world it was where parents have to resort to such desperate measures to attain what the believed would be a better education for their children (which I will come back to).
I know something strange is supposed to happen when you first see the wriggly little thing spawned of your own DNA smile and take its first breath. And I get the wanting the best for your children but to forsake all that you stand for and prostitute your beliefs in the name of education. It is one thing being Christian and going to church but faking it? Is it because parents think their red cheeked cherubs will be safer from the evils of the world in the house sponsored by god?
The other guy had so far managed impartiality. But like me seemed a little confused if that was their only reason for going to church. Matt did not miss a beat.
It is good to teach your children a good moral grounding, don’t you think. I am even thinking about buying a Bible you know.
I almost choked my coffee over the back of his seat. And then had to restrain myself from jumping up and asking him what the hell he was on about. What bloody morals. You mean “do unto others as you would have done unto you.’ The golden rule of humanity that has been found repeated in civilisations across the world from almost a thousand years before Jesus.
What about all the other good stuff you might ask.
To which I would retort, ‘What stuff.’
‘All the good stuff Christians do?’
You tell me the last time you met a Christian that did any good for anyone other than a Christian. Or at least anyone other than those prepared to bow their head in prayer in order to receive a vaccination. Doing something in the name of faith for those that will acknowledge that faith is not good morals.
Doing something in the name of your faith is not the same as doing what your faith tells you either. People do good all the time, some of them just happen to be Christian. And don’t get me started on the bad that people do, do not assume bad is only done by people without faith. I could take a considerable amount of your time listing the bad done in the name of Christianity.
But we digress. So if Christians doing good doesn’t stand them out morally, maybe the word of their Bible does - the word of god they will tell you. Well if that is the case your morals revolve around condoning the beating of children to death if they are naughty (obviously after you get them back from church) and that (we are only touching the surface here) woman are only good for having children and should accept they are to blame for the sins of the world and are not even worthy of speaking in Church. Which you might snort at. But that one passage in the New Testament attributed to Paul was not even written by Paul - it was written in his name at least two hundred years after he died (most of us would call that a forgery). It has been used to subvert woman ever since. In the actual writings of Paul he talks of woman running worship groups, it never occurred to him woman would not be prominent. Oh what a wonderful thing the Christian Church turned itself into.
I would probably have recommended Matt read his Bible and quote a few of the good morals he was on about, those suitable for his children. But he would probably soon realise, as he otherwise seemed like a descent guy, just why the Church routinely had anyone that tried translating the Bible from Latin quite literally hung drawn and quartered. That was the punishment. The first Bible that was widely available to anyone outside the Church was the King James in the early eighteenth century. Which of cause precluded the demise of the Church because everyone then read it and saw it for what it really was – mythical and legendary.
And while we are at it precisely what do you consider is a good education for your child, apart from all those Biblical morals. A cursory glance at evolution? And then doctrine around all creation flowing from the hands of a glowing caucasion, who created mankind and then considered all his mistakes must have been the woman’s fault.
Surely only mankind could make up such rubbish. The need for faith through a god is nothing more than a human illness with it’s roots set in the same foundations as all other addictions. A mechanism by which people can overcome their social fears and failings and become part of a social group.
Church is the absolutely last place I would take a child. Which you should probably consider has one of the highest rate of convicted child sex offenders of any profession. Like Alfred Hitchcock is often quoted as saying after seeing a priest lean forward to place a hand on a young boys shoulder: ‘Run child, run for your life.’
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