A Short Primer
for the
Spiritually Conflicted
Despite mankind's tendency towards marginalizing ("othering") itself, in modern society this practice is beginning to look stupid, and even devout Christians are starting to question the "rightness" of hate in the name of God. The colloquial term for this emergent cognitive dawning is "woke." Though loud, the voices that continue demanding religion reigns over law are diminishing, leaving mostly red-faced zealots, con artists and madmen still preaching hellfire, beatings and jail for perfectly nice, normal people who are merely trying to live a decent life with friends and loved ones. Are humans evolving towards a new Enlightenment, or gradually reverting to a kind of merry Polytheism? The right answer may be somewhere in the middle. But there's an indisputable truth that even modern Christians are beginning to embrace: Decent human beings simply do not act like assholes in the name of God, or any gods.Given the awkwardness, no one will hold it against you if you find yourself wondering whether or not you should upgrade your religion. To determine if upgrading is the right choice for you, ask yourself the following questions:
- What are the risks of keeping everything the same?
- But will upgrading solve my problems?
- Do I know how to perform this upgrade?
- Is it worth it to replace parts?
1. What are the risks of keeping everything the same?
For this section. let's begin with an exercise. Try this exercise at home. Use extra space if necessary.
"Obsolete"
Define it to Overcome it
Define it to Overcome it
How old is your phone? When did you get it? When you got that phone, what were your reasons for upgrading from your old phone? Ask each member of the group to provide three reasons why they felt they must get a new phone:
- ＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿
- ＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿
- ＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿
If you put down "It was too old," that's a good start. If your phone is, say, five years old, your whole world is at risk of becoming obsolete, is it not? And when you got your new phone, ask yourself, did it come with a manual for the abacus, an ancient device Wikipedia suggests came into use in 500 BC? It does not. That would be silly, using such an old manual. Nothing in it applies, does it? Next, carefully compare and contrast the moral code you renew each day and defend with your very life against the reasons why you upgraded your phone...a device that didn't even exist when Generation X was born. You subscribe to a belief system that suggests, in an infinite universe spanning an infinite number of worlds on an impossible-to-know number of galaxies, that nothing has changed in *infinitaliauries [*See Gen X Anthology].
"But why upgrade?"
Because whether it's your phone or your bible, at some point that lifeline in your hand is, simply put, too old. What had once been ideal no longer works. Your friends can't connect with you anymore. The platforms you are accustomed to using are no longer supported, even by those who created them, and eventually your entire operating system will be rendered obsolete.2. But will upgrading solve my problems?
If you find yourself becoming ashamed, embarrassed or outright appalled by the terrible way your peers treat people that do not attend your same exact house of worship, or do not live, act, talk or look just like you, then congratulations. Your conflicting feelings are the signal that your intelligence is intact. It means you're actually a decent person. Your heart, as they say, is in the right place. What do you do about it? You have several options.
If you're simply enduring the occasional pang of guilt for ostracizing members of your own family, friends and total strangers that have nothing whatsoever to do with you, and if you've run out of excuses to justify the behavior of your peers and leaders, then the problem can probably be solved by swapping out the components that no longer work.
Other issues have more complicated solutions that may extend further than a basic part swap can fix. For example, if the only reason you don't go around bashing people in the face with a beer mug is because there's a religious book that says not to do that, then it may be that you lack the necessary empathy for all living things, or you may have insufficient education, are gripped with some vague kind of general rage, or are experiencing a combination of all three. Solving this problem with an upgrade may not be possible. Professional help is strongly recommended.
For this section, please refer to Chapter 4, Section B, Who Is This God Person, Anyway 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Upgrading may be as complex as finding another religion altogether, but it may also be simple given what parts of your bible you use to beat people over the head with; you may find it easier to upgrade in steps. You can retire the glaringly insane parts. For example, for the numerous Christian organizations currently still using a bible as their manual, retiring Leviticus and Deuteronomy may do the trick.
[*See chapter 9: Actually That's Not Even The Bible.]
⚠ WARNING ⚠
If you become enraged
when you hear "Happy holidays!"
when you hear "Happy holidays!"
then please do start small for your own safety and that of others in your community.
4. Is it worth it to replace parts?
While selectively replacing obsolete parts of your church *creed may grant some peace of mind for now, note that you will still be a card-carrying member of a group that supports hateful name-calling, ostracizing, spitting on, beating and killing of fellow human beings who don't happen to be you. Always research a potential upgrade beforehand to determine if it's feasible given your family situation, where you are living, and your level of comfort with embracing a new belief system.
The question you need to ask yourself is this: will replacing parts take you far enough towards inner peace? You love God, and you've read your bible cover to cover, but you're pretty sure that a tragic mass murder at a gay nightclub isn't any kind of fulfilled prophecy. The Deuteronomy example referred to earlier makes for a good exercise, because this is the scripture that is widely interpreted (controversially) as condemning homosexuality.
[*See chapter 9: Actually That's Not Even The Bible.]
and the cruel venom of asps."
(Deut. 32:33).
But, soft! In recent centuries, the church has swapped out "dragons" for "serpents," lest anyone suspect that this is just a book written by well-meaning thinking people who were using the best information they had available to them in their time and place in history. So who did they ask before deciding that the "dragons" bit was what needed upgrading? Did they ask the cartographers who'd replaced "Here Be Dragons" on the map once they actually went there and found...no dragons? Next time there's a tweak to the language, probably to upgrade "serpents" to "snakes," perhaps it would be a good idea to consider taking some suggestions about one or two other changes. Perhaps your church has a suggestion box. Suggest that human sexuality is far more complex than "gay people are dragons."
Community Enrichment Exercises
- Teach your kids the "do unto others" bit. Ask each child to remember a time when they felt bullied, then discuss as a group what is the bully thinking when deliberately causing hurt to others? Talk about "decency."
- Push Commandments 2, and 5 through 10, as those are a great start for kids in terms of a general guideline on how to not be an asshole. Swap out 1, 3 and 4 for those "Goofus and Gallant" comics in Highlights Magazine.
- Discuss with peers how the bible specifies the exact same punishment for eating bacon as it does for homosexuality. So next church breakfast, observe in a loud voice how odd it is that nobody is actually getting smote down into a slurry of pork and flannel, and maybe pass the maple syrup along with a mildly worded suggestion that you congregates all ease the hell up on the gays.
Give Yourself Time
You don't know how far back it goes since your family and community have been using _______________ (insert your church affiliation) as a virtue signal, irrespective of how many fellow human beings are getting marginalized and worse in the name of your church.
Intellectually you know that being _______________ (insert your church affiliation) is a personal lifestyle choice, not something that should be used as a cudgel with which to bludgeon 325 million other Americans into playing a massive national game of "Monkey See, Monkey Do" with you.
Put simply: you know that your religion is yours. You know that it feeds your soul. You know in your heart that you are lucky to live in a great nation of laws where you live free to practice openly and without fear of harm by others. Perhaps in your zeal, you may have forgotten that it is the law, and not your church, that grants you that freedom. You may have let slide in recent years that the same law applies to each and every human being in the country, including those who choose to opt out altogether. Freedom from religion, as noted by the late Frank Zappa, is an equally valid lifestyle.
You can't simply stop being _______________ (insert your church affiliation) overnight. You are so used to hating your neighbor by now that you can't figure out when you learned to act this way.
You Were Taught To Hate, But There's Hope
It's not your fault. You were taught to hate in the name of God and it is understandable that you are feeling uncertain and lost in a world that seems to have left God behind. But it didn't! It's just that your church is clinging to an antediluvian notion of what "God" means. Loving God is wonderful, please continue. but make it a priority to un-learn hate. You have plenty of support if you want to try. What if you're happier? What if more people seem to like you a lot better? What if you take down your self-imposed fence, talk to your neighbor and find out you have everything in common except the deity you were taught to worship, or your skin color or some other thing that happened to you arbitrarily based on happenstance of birth? The worst that could happen is you find out you still don't care for that guy, but for a real reason, like maybe he doesn't recycle or he introduced you by name personally to each of his Chia Pets, in which case, sure, build a real fence and keep an eye out for weird goings on next door. But the best thing could happen, too: fellowship, in the best sense of the word.∎
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| Area Photographer Plagued By Nightmares
"I guess I was absent the day Sister Eileen taught us God Hates Fags,"
says local photographer, raised Catholic, name withheld out of fear of the blond kid in the red shirt. |
[XCRPT]
