As a kid I just couldn't wrap my head around the idea of salvation. It wasn't a big deal, I just accepted what they taught me at home, in church and at school, and assumed that when I'm older and wiser, I'll finally understand.
This approach worked out for many other things, like understanding how sex actually works or finally learning what “money laundering” means (my parents never managed to explain either to me). When it comes to salvation, though... I might be an educated adult with a solid dose of religious indoctrination in the past, but I still cannot understand how can any rational person believe in salvation.
It just doesn't make sense. None at all, from any perspective. It's just bullshit.
Let's start at the beginning: what do we even need salvation from? Well, from sin, obviously. Because we are all sinful, of course. It's all because Adam & Eve. Because they did something wrong – without even knowing it was wrong.
You know, like when a child says “fuck” without even knowing what it means, and instead of explaining them that it's a nasty word and they shouldn't repeat that, you get angry at them, throw them out of your house make them beg you for ever and ever to forgive them for that one “fuck”.
It seems so obvious to Christians that humans need “salvation”. But salvation from what? What's gonna happen if no one “saves” us?
Whatever the punishment is, it comes from god. Ex definitione. Dude's supposed to be all-powerful and the source of everything that happens in the universe (yes, even evil, see: Isaiah 45, 7).
Is god saving us from himself?
Apparently, I'm more powerful than god in one manner: I am able to forgive someone without requiring a human sacrifice.
Why the hell would an all-powerful, benevolent god come up with such a crazy plan, if he could just forgive?
I think we can all agree that there's no greater sacrifice than sacrificing your life. From an atheistic perspective it's literally all we can give. Whatever you owned, whatever you planned to do, whatever you craved for – it's all useless if you're dead.
Even Christians, who believe in life after death, and who claim that one is the real life, while our time here on Earth is basically worthless, they still don't want to leave this planet too early. Even Jesus himself said that “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15, 13).
And Jesus's sacrifice is supposed to be the greatest ever. So powerful that it can redress all the wrongdoings in the entire history of humankind! It needs to be huge! And it supposedly is: not only is it someone offering their live, but also this someone is an all powerful god. Can't get bigger than that, can it?
Except it can get smaller. You know, when you come back to life after three days. Sure, all the tortures you've suffered were awful and everything, but in the end you have your life back, right? Also, you are supposed to be a Trinity. Have you really been dead for those three days, if two thirds of you we fine and living all along?
So as big as your sacrifice might have been – was it really the greatest one ever? Was it so huge that it can redeem every single murder, rape, theft and fraud in the entire history?
Jesus's sacrifice is often described as “paying off a debt” (for instance in the Exsultet). Who paid whom with what, may I ask? God paid god with god's life? That makes perfect sense!
When my husband jokingly demands some money from me for something, I joke back, saying I'll transfer it to his account. You see, the joke is: we have a shared bank account.
How is that different from god paying himself off?
Would it be moral (and legal), if I decided to go to jail, as an innocent person, in place of some rightfully convicted criminal?
Is the world going to be a better place, if I sacrifice myself so that a person who should suffer the consequences for their terrible actions goes free?
Would any judge allow it, if I stood up after a trial of some rapist and said that I'm willing to murder my son so that this rapist goes free?
Salvation was supposed to fix the world. The Easter Vigil is filled with pompous words about “defeating death”, “destroying sin”, “defying satan”, etc. etc.
Has any of those promises really been delivered? Why do we still sin, if the “Lamb of God, took away the sins of the world”? If time is irrelevant and Jesus died for the future sins too, why are there still consequences for sinning? How is Satan still scary? How does any of it make sense?
Sooo... god created us flawed and wants to punish us for being flawed. Except really he doesn't, he'd rather save us from his own rage. So he has sent himself (aka. his son) to be killed (but not really) so that his suffering teaches us a lesson and removes all the sin, suffering and death, except all of them are still there.
Convincing.
]]>For whatever reason, many monotheists seem proud of believing in just one god as opposed to those “pagans” who believe in many. They consider it some kind of a “progress” (well, one is closer to the actual number of gods – zero – so technically it might be correct). But are they really monotheistic?
When you walk into the church I used to attend as a child, what do you see in the very center? Yes, the tabernacle, allegedly containing god himself. But what’s way way above it? What’s surrounded by golden ornaments and votive offerings? A figurine of Mary.
One might get into semantic tricks, sure... Talk about how Catholics don’t worship Mary or any other saint, they just admire their lives. How they don’t pray to them, they pray to Jahwe “through the intercession” of the saints. We all know that’s bullshit.
In ancient Greece sailors had figurines of Poseidon on their ships, they would pray to him before setting sails and they believed that would keep them safe during their journey. Modern Catholic sailors have a picture of saint Nicholas of Myra in their wallet and they pray to him before embarking.
Both ancient polytheists and modern quasi-monotheists believe that there’s a group of beings, immortal (at least spiritually), inhabiting heavens, each having a “domain” assigned to them, who deserve of having their images made, who can listen to their prayers and somehow cause them to come true.
A catholic bishop once really really wanted to trick me into just touching a golden reliquary containing a piece of fabric of John Paul II’s cassock. Would he believe so much in that stupid object having some magic powers if he really believed in just one god and treated all the images and relics of saints as merely reminders of how to be a good person like them? Please...
And don’t even get me started about the god himself being simultaneously three persons. Early Christians were so into the idea of Jesus being a god, but also so into the Jewish teaching of there being just one god, that they invented this idiotic idea that there is indeed just one god, he just happens to technically consist of three separate persons, who are also not so separate.
Honestly, the “best” explanation of the trinity I’ve ever heard was from an actual sermon in an actual church quoting an actual Christian theologian, who basically said that the absurdity of that idea is actually the whole point! It’s a god thing, we can’t comprehend god... So if we think we understand the concept, that means we don’t, and if we accept it regardless of its absurdity – that’s when we somehow really understand it.
What a neat, anti-intellectual bullshit.
As much as they might claim otherwise, what Catholics believe in is actually the same kind of mythology that the ancient pagans believed in.
]]>I have, however, found a way to spare myself all that conversional boredom. Ready?
Jesus has said: “Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” (Mt 12, 32)
So, blaspheming against the Holy Spirit is enough to have no way back anymore? So that all the attempts of converting yourself, begging for forgiveness and doing penance, were as pointless within the christian theology as they as in reality? So that god’s infinite mercy suddenly finished for me? Count me in!
Okey then: The Holy Ghost is a dull, egoistic, racist, sadistic fucktard. Is that enough to have that ”salvation” topic behind me?
The Catechism points out six “sins against the Holy Spirit”:
Well, I don’t believe in god, or his mercy, or a “sin”, and I’m not planning to do any penance neither now or right before my death, so it’s hard for me to fulfil points 1, 4 and 6 in any way – but instead, my disbelief makes me qualify for irreversible, unconditional damnation according to points 2, 3 and 5.
There’s no hope for me then. You don’t have to bother me with any conversion attempts. Have a nice day! :)
]]>Trochę mnie wkurza, gdy ktoś chce mnie nawracać. Bo wprawdzie wiem, że to zapewne z dobrych pobudek, że chcą mi dać prezent w postaci życia wiecznego i w ogóle, ale z perspektywy człowieka, który spędził (zdecydowanie zbyt) wiele czasu na poznawaniu religii świata, fakt nieistnienia boga jest dla mnie tak oczywisty, a absurdalność religii tak wielka, że nie ma już dla mnie drogi powrotnej. Szkoda czasu nawet na patrzenie w jej stronę.
Znalazłem jednak sposób, by sobie tych nawracaniowych przynudzań oszczędzić. Gotowi?
Otóż Jezus zaprawdę powiedział onegdaj: “Jeśli ktoś powie słowo przeciw Synowi Człowieczemu, będzie mu odpuszczone, lecz jeśli powie przeciw Duchowi Świętemu, nie będzie mu odpuszczone ani w tym wieku, ani w przyszłym.” (Mt 12, 32)
A zatem wystarczy zbluźnić przeciw Duchowi Świętemu, by nie było już odwrotu? By wszelkie próby nawracania się, przebłagiwania i pokutowania były w ramach teologii chrześcijańskiej równie bezcelowe, jak są w rzeczywistości? By boskie nieskończone miłosierdzie nagle się dla mnie skończyło? Chętnie na to pójdę!
A zatem: Duch Święty to tępy, egoistyczny, rasistowski, sadystyczny cwel. Czy to wystarczy żeby mieć już z głowy temat ”zbawienia”?
Katechizm wylicza następujące “grzechy przeciwko Duchowi Świętemu”:
Cóż, nie wierzę w boga, w jego miłosierdzie, ani w coś takiego jak “grzech”, a “pokuty i nawrócenia” nie planuję ani na teraz, ani na łoże śmierci, więc ciężko mi jakkolwiek spełnić punkt pierwszy, czwarty i szósty – za to moja niewiara zdecydowanie kwalifikuje mnie do nieodwracalnego, bezwarunkowego potępienia ze względu na punkt drugi, trzeci i piąty.
Nie ma zatem dla mnie żadnej nadziei. Nie musisz sobie (i mi) zawracać głowy żadnymi “zbawiennymi napomnieniami”. Miłego dnia! :)
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