Thursday, April 28, 2011

The goal of religion...

The point of life if you're a christian is to become as much like jesus as you can. jesus said it himself in mathew 5:48 - 'be ye therefore perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect.' Jesus demands perfection. And no christian would claim that Jesus wasn't perfect, so the goal is to be like him.
Now if that's the goal, then we have to follow the example he left. WHICH MEANS: we have to walk around, correcting peoples mistakes/sins. Jesus loved the people of this earth, and he wanted to make them get back to god, the way he did that, and the only way to do that is by correcting errors. Calling people to repentance. Therefore if you want to be perfect, (which jesus has commanded) every religious person should be devoted to correcting peoples mistakes.
My mission was ripe with people who acted like this. Missionaries would correct other missionaries constantly on any and every action and/or word. Anything that derived from the spirit, and some missionary would make it known.
And while I hated them at the time, because it was very apparent they were hypocrites. (they would constantly be doing something against the rules of the mission)
Even though I hated them for it - I understood it. Their job is to correct flaws, that's what they were told to do. They were given the authority and power of the priesthood to act in gods name. And they had the example of jesus to follow - they were only doing what they had been told.

But no matter how much I understood it, I always thought of them as assholes. Think about it, if you walked around all day correcting your friends, your neighbors, coworkers, children, wife, parents, siblings, strangers, for every little mistake they made. How far do you think you'd get before people started telling you to fuck off?
It would be an incredibly lonely road. It would build a very pessimistic atmosphere around you, and people would begin to hate you,  and feel like they couldn't act like themselves around you. Eventually they would avoid you altogether.
In my entire life - i've been surrounded by 2 people that are like this. Constantly correcting, telling people to act a certain way around them, etc. I can tell you by experience - they have no real friends. No one ever gets close to them, they are very isolated and alone. They both believe the worst of other people when it comes to religion.
But this is the price you have to pay if you really believe in the christian god.

This is the choice I came across getting home from my mission.
There's really only 3 options when it comes to religion, and the christian god.

1. You believe, call everyone to repentance, correct every mistake you see. And isolate yourself from the rest of the world.

2. half-ass it. Say you believe, but do things that constantly prevent you from becoming perfect.

3. don't believe in it. find something else to believe in that you can fully devote yourself to without becoming the asshole that the first options demand you to.

Those were my three options coming home from my mission. Choose option 1 and be like jesus (an asshole).
2. half-ass it (which really there's no point to - deny yourself certain pleasures, while justifying other pleasures (or sins) and pretending that god won't care about those sins.
or 3 - drop it altogether and find something that works without the contradictions of the other 2 options.

When you put the options up like that it really becomes an easy choice. MOST people won't choose option 1 - because they realize the fallacy of it. (which I will explain in a minute)
Option 2 is very appealing - and is the option most people pick.


Option 2:
Justified

Pretty much everyone I know falls into this category.
I remember getting home (at this time I still believed in mormonism) and I argued with my friends about rated R movies. (for those who don't know, it is against mormon culture to watch movies that are rated R)
I had grown up watching rated R movies my entire life. Never had a problem with them. Parents watched 'em, friends watched 'em, it was never really an issue until I got home from the mish.

Their argument ultimately fell on the fact that they would not want to watch any rated R movie if jesus, their bishop, or the prophet were present. To which I laughed.

'you're not going to get closer to god by watching a movie. So why would you feel any better about watching a PG movie that takes away from you learning, and growing closer to God. Or a rated R movie that distracts from god?'

Remember - jesus, the prophet, bishops - ALL OF THEM fit into the first option - and they are going to PICK APART every mistake you make.
Now for anyone who believes in god or religion - and has chosen this option - ask yourself. How many things do you do a day that do not get you closer to god?
My friend Mark Twain wrote a little about this - and I feel I should touch on this contradiction as well.
My friends LOVE Arrested development, the office, 30 rock. They enjoy playing video games like battlefield 2, halo, star wars, etc.
They do these things because they find joy in them. Do you really think in the next life you're going to sit in a room playing video games, or talking about arrested development?
If anyone has picked this option - you do realize that eventually you will have to feel ashamed for liking these things, right? You're goal in this life obviously isn't to be perfect like jesus, it's to be happy. But EVENTUALLY you will have to be perfect, and when you are, you'll have to feel ashamed about who you are. You'll have to learn to dislike the things you take joy in, and be ashamed of anyone else who does find joy in them (good luck).
You want the best of both worlds - that's why you haven't picked option 1. You want to feel like there's a heaven for you, and that you can praise jesus, be happy, and have an eternal family. But you also just want to spend your lives dicking around with simple pleasures.
What's that phrase that religious people love? 'your happiness is temporary, ours is eternal.'
Well that's good and great - but if my joy is temporal, and you're choosing option 2 - guess what dipshit - your joy is temporal too. The eternal joy you somehow feel you can claim is only for people that are becoming like jesus - not wasting their time on temporal joys like movies, and video games.

If you want that eternal joy you seem to think you already have - you're gonna have to pick option 1. And why don't you do this? It's not because you're weak, it's not because you can't - you believe in god apparently, you took on the name of jesus - and you have the priesthood - the absolute power of god - you represent him on this earth.
Or rather I should say, you represent him a few hours a week when you go to church, or have church responsibilites. But the rest of the week you're just like everyone else - finding as much temporal joy as you can. So why don't you pick option 1? Cause it's more apparent that you're an asshole. Option 2 allows you to lie to yourself, and to everyone else, and feel okay about it. Which is the real goal of religion.

I'll just say this last comment for all the people that fit into this option:

If you spend more time playing games, reading books, and watching movies than you do studying scriptures, praying, or calling people to repentance. You don't honestly believe that those things bring you eternal joy. If that shit made you THAT happy - you'd choose that over games and movies.  You're obviously getting more joy out of temporary things, than the eternal...

hmmm... I wonder why...


Option 1
Jesus - you got problems.

It's a funny thing when people choose option 1. You're really able to see the true stupidity of religion.
This option, (which is supposedly the goal of religion) doesn't work well with public relations. Either way you come off as an idiot - pick option 2, and have people think you're not confident, that you half ass things, and you're a hypocrite. BUT with option 2, religion seems more normal, because people don't act like assholes. SO it's great for PR.

Or pick option 1 - and this is where the real PR issues come into play.
You're asked to be like jesus, or to try. Problem is, you don't have a knowledge of it, you have faith. Faith is not knowledge - if it were this world would be FUCKED UP. Can you imagine a world where every religious person was extreme about their beliefs? Can you imagine if every religion had their own 'moses' - some guy just roaming around with their followers, destroying villages because their pagan culture will influence them for the bad?
That's the world that would be created if everyone took religion seriously. Thank god the majority of religious people half ass it - can't imagine how horrible it would be if religion actually accomplished their goal of turning people into confident, faith is knowledge extremists.
Which is why the people that follow this option make it so apparent that religion is full of shit.
For PR reasons they don't want you to become extreme (which is why no prophet resembles the hard ass approach joseph smith had anymore, Joe smith would be kicked out of his own religion because of the PR issues he would create by claiming everyone elses church is an ABOMINATION) - but yet, they tell you to be like jesus, and that you CAN know for a fact that he lives.
hmmm... you want us to know for a fact that he lives, but if we find out for a fact, you want us to not give a shit because no one likes an extremist. SO believe, but half ass it - we don't want to be known as assholes for going around talking as if we actually believed this shit.

Once again - the goal of religion is to do something they never ACTUALLY intend to accomplish. Because if they had a bunch of little Jesus' running around telling people they're going to hell for thinking different than them - everyone would hate them.
What's that jesus line again, 'lose yourself for my sake'

Phew - alright - we can all stop pretending that religion and god are real now. If it were you'd either have to  be like jesus (the asshole in option 1), or the hypocritical asshole (option 2) -

Good thing it's not true, or our terrible god would make assholes of all of us.
And god -  if you're so in love with assholes, why are you against gays?
No one else is going to understand your love of assholes like the gay community!

1 comment:

  1. Jesus is a very bad man, crazy, a shit, a bloody arsehole. Does he keep anything to himself? I don't know! He gets away with this evil horror of his, like expecting you to worship his blood and death. Hinduism, hmmmm, well it's silly, the evil of it is that there is pain and sleeping in a bed of nails. Sikhs are dickheads: they tell the truth like frigging idiots. Mormons are living in fantasy and this fantasy is now real: they think people will stay on earth for ever, this is evil because it's boring and I want freedom of movement and live on the Moon if I want to; this fantasy became real, everyone is living on earth. Plus religious people criticise my religion, saying I'm wrong, well I'm not wrong: I got the facts straight, I don't do revelation, I don't learn from scriptures or religious books (they might be lies, they might not be accurate truths), so I'm not wrong because I tested my beliefs and found evidence. My learning and interpretation is accurate: the rest of you religious people can't even be geniuses at testing your knowledge, the problem is you change nothing, and you don't correct your beliefs, test them, or use scepticism for what you believe. However saying "no no no" as if I'm wrong: no, I'm not wrong, and only I know real truth, but in the future you won't understand that, are you blind? Religious people don't understand that when I talk about myths, I get my facts straight, on the contrary I have the experience of being cleansed by purifying my life: if that means no greed and no gluttony and no suffering, always taking it easy, it's no wonder people respect my ascetic beliefs.

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