I'd like to give some free advice
You should remember well;
There won't be smiles in Paradise,
There'll be no tears in Hell.
Be your preacher e'er so nice,
Illusion's what they sell.
This time on Earth's your only life
So you should live it well.
Stop helping folks to make their way
Through non-existent gates.
Your effort's wasted when you pay
The church collection plate.
Hardship can't be prayed away
Like wiping chalk from slate—
Nobody's list'ning when you pray;
No answer, there, awaits.
No help is coming from the sky;
Look to yourself instead.
Don't promise better by-and-by
When all life has fled.
The weary don't need holy lies,
They need a decent bed.
Help the helpless in this life…
It's too late when they're dead.
—Daz
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The Christian church helps the helpless more than anybody. Your philosophy is the same as Marx’s philosophy. It leads to utopian pursuits which turn into tyranny.
Love your poetry skills, though.
Diana, thanks for the compliment.
Much of (not all, I’ll admit) the good done by churches is done at the “price” of attempts to convert.
The largest Christian denomination in the world, Catholicism, quite literally sells its help at the very high price of reduced access to sex-ed, contraception and abortion, in some of the poorest areas of the world.
How much does a church, mosque, synagogue, etc cost to build and maintain? A Cathedral?
Individual Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus… may well give more to charity than non-believers. How much of that money goes to actually helping people though, rather than to church-upkeep or trying to convert the heathen? I’ve seen studies which claim all three positions: that once such things are discounted, they give more, less, or about the same. None of the studies looked convincing to me, and all looked like they were biased toward trying to prove a preconception, rather than arrive at the truth. It probably also varies highly from culture to culture. One thing’s for sure though—it’s not as clear cut as one might suppose at first glance.
But here’s the main point
Mostly though, it’s not the charity or lack thereof I’m moaning about, and I certainly wouldn’t imply that many/most religious people aren’t trying to do right as they see it. I just deplore the waste of effort put into trying to help people’s chances of a happy afterlife which doesn’t exist, when that effort would be better spent helping people in this, the only life they’ll ever actually have.
Umm
And how does wanting to help people in this life, rather than in a notional afterlife, equal Marxist ideology? Christ, I’m a socialist, and even I think Marx was full of shit.
(To be fair: he was spot-on with his diagnosis of the problems; his solutions though, were simplistic and completely unworkable. (Communism works great in small communities, entered into voluntarily, where the relative values of goods and services can be fairly ad hoc.) Even then, though, I’d love to know how Russia would have turned out had Trotsky’s path been followed. My guess is “less authoritarian, just as disastrous, quicker dropped as a failure.”)
Daz,
Believe it or not, I’m in agreement with you. I look at all the temples and cathedrals around the world and I see abusive religious authority.
The Christians organizations that I’m referring to usually aren’t affiliated with a particular denomination. They use their money to care for the poor. James, the brother of Jesus, wrote: “True religion is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress.”
I’m sickened by those religious leaders who prance around in their religious garbs, receiving accolades from the “faithful.” Gag me.
This made John Huss, one of the forerunners to Martin Luther, very upset also. At the front of his church he put a picture of the pope in all his splendor next to a picture of the poverty-stricken Jesus to display the hypocrisy of the Catholic leaders. For being so brazenly outspoken he was burnt at the stake.
Jesus told his followers to “love their neighbors.” This was the point of the story of the good Samaritan. He also said that we would be judged by how we fed and clothed the “least of these.” (Matthew 25) By doing this, Jesus connected the hereafter with this world.
Religious leaders who tell people they can connect to God through their religious rituals and activities are corrupting the message of the gospel, which is this: when you come to Christ through grace, rather than works, you are given a new spirit. Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.”
He also said, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation, old things are passed away, behold all things become new.”
This new heart is a heart of compassion and love, even towards enemies. It’s not putting another dollar into the plate for the fat shepherds, or praying 10 “hail Mary’s” — it’s having a kind heart.
Marx believed that Christianity dulled peoples’ worldly pain and made them satisfied with obtaining a just world in the “by and by” rather than rebelling and creating it now. I just thought this was similar to what you were saying in your poem.
Run for the hills, we agree on summat. Surely must the end-times be upon us! 🙂
“Come to Christ through grace.” By this, do you mean doing good works, etc? I’m asking for clarification, ’cause the context I’m used to seeing that phrase in is that “grace” means, somehow, “belief in Christ.” The good ol’ “I don’t need to do anything: He that believeth in me is all I need” argument.
People so often make that mistake regarding Marx’s oft-quoted “opium of the people.”They (you) are putting the cart before the horse.
Marx wasn’t saying that religion is used as a tool to keep people satisfied with poverty (etc). He was saying that people—understandably—turn to stories of a better life after death, because that gives them the illusion of self-improvement, where they have no hope of improving their mortal lives. (Much of the sermon on the mount attests to that, when you look at it in the context of Jesus preaching to a downtrodden, militarily oppressed people.)
Marx wasn’t specifically concerned with getting rid of religion, but he did correctly note that it tends to be a symptom of oppression, not necessarily the cause. The shame is that “opium of the people” makes such a nice sound-byte that it gets quoted out of context, and twisted.
And, of course, as you note, organised religion does get used as a tool of oppression, so it’s not as simple as either reading of Marx. It’s a spiral. Oppressed people turn to religion, which in turn oppresses them further, but the religion is holding out promise/threats of eternal bliss/torture, so instead of turning away, they follow increasingly narrow religious ideals, convinced that their oppression is now their own fault for upsetting God. Which makes them even more susceptible to abuse by anyone with a good preaching-voice who can tell them how to appease the god they’re convinced they’ve upset.
The thing is though, that once people are convinced of the reality of this god who needs appeasing, even if they stop being politically oppressed, the religious belief-system doesn’t just go away. And, boy, is it a money-maker.
I love the poetry
The God I believe in has done everything he can to provide a way to be reconciled to him. Grace requires that I receive what he has done for me because he won’t force himself on me. He won’t violate my free will. If I don’t want to be with him, that’s up to me. But he has made provision for me to be justified in the universal court.
The thing is, if I choose not to be with him, I’m choosing darkness, because he’s light. He’s also love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, and self-control. These are the attributes of his spirit. By rejecting God, I believe I’m rejecting all the things that make the world beautiful and good, because he is their ultimate source.
If God is love, and you separate yourself from him, then you are in an indifferent world where there is no compassion, kindness, and gentleness. It sounds like a place of chaos, darkness, and regret. It sounds like hell.
So I’m lacking in compassion, kindness and gentleness?
Could it be that there is a universal entity that is the source of all that is holy and good? And could it be possible that that entity in the universe is trying to communicate a message to the people of our planet? Why is that so far-fetched? Even Carl Sagan believed we weren’t alone in the universe.
As I look at history, I see that those people who believed the message of that universal entity became those who made the greatest advances for good. They became the heroes of history. Those who corrupt that message are the scourge of history–especially those who disobey God in the name of God!
makagutu
Thank you.
Like the man who lit the fire under Giordano Bruno? Like Osama bin Laden? Like Fred Phelps? Like Torquemada?
I’m not saying all religious (note: I’m talking religion, you’re assuming I mean exclusively Christian) people are bad. I’m just pointing out that you’re cherry picking.
As far as your comment on appeasing God, any GOOD preacher will teach that Jesus’ death on the cross appeased God. All we have to do is receive his finished work which he completed on our behalf.
I think the existence of judgment is a good thing. It implies there must be laws. Would we want to live in a universe without laws? Or would we rather live in a Mad Max kind of universe where the strong rule over the weak?
I’m also glad that grace exists. Grace = unmerited favor.
Hi Daz,
I said those who corrupt the message of grace are a scourge to history. I don’t believe Osama bin Laden held to the gospel. He opposed it and even referred to the nation whose people embrace it as the “Great Satan.”
Torquemada, the inquisitor, was a Catholic who didn’t adhere to the teachings of Christ. He, along with the one who lit the fire under Bruno, burnt their enemies, disobeying the command to love our enemies. This is what I mean when I say that people disobey God in the name of God.
What can be said about Fred Phelps? He’s not a representative of the gospel of grace when he says God hates fags. God loves all sinners so much he sent Jesus so he could be reconciled to them. He even loves the abusive and self-righteous Fred Phelps who corrupts the gospel message.
“ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
Daz,
I haven’t found you to be lacking in compassion, kindness, and gentleness.:) My initial fears were unmerited. I judged a book by its cover. You have been a very fair and gracious opponent. (If “opponent” is the right word to describe you.)
I’m not missing your point.
I believe all people are capable of good AND evil. That is what so many of our television shows are about lately. The mafia man who loves his grandchildren. The drug dealer who gives his money to the poor. All of us are a hodge-podge of good and evil.
But God is still a part of your existence. He lives through his people. He lives as an influencing force in your legal system. His values are found in your hospitals and charities.
What if his spirit and influence was completely removed and you had to live in a world where HE WAS REJECTED?
We have seen examples of this in different societies throughout history. Those who worshiped Baal and sacrificed their children to the fire. Those who embraced Marxist atheism. Those cannibalistic societies who had no knowledge of God and his Word.These were ugly abusive societies where the gospel had no place.
Well okay, I’ll pass by without disputing that for now, if only to point out that what you follow it with…
…is in contradiction to it.
“Believe in me in order to enter Heaven” is also a requirement, which means God requires further appeasement than that which Jesus made.
The thing is though, that a good preacher might also tell you that Allah is the one true god and Mohamed is his prophet. Or that you must make confession to a catholic priest. Or that you must circumcise your boy-children.
And all of these good preachers will be as incorrect as you are.
There is no god to appease, and, as I say in the poem above, there is no afterlife; and efforts made to appease that go and prepare for that afterlife are wasted. In the best of intentions, but wasted.
But they didn’t corrupt that message as they interpreted it. My point was that it’s all very well to point at people who do great things in the name of religion, but to say that religion is therefore great, whilst ignoring the people who do bad things in its name, is to argue dishonestly—to cherry pick.
That’s like saying atmospheric pollution produces lovely sunsets (it does, by the way), therefore atmospheric pollution is a good thing.
Thank you. I’m British you know; we don’t deal with personal praise very well. 🙂 I will say that anyone whose kids recommend songs on the basis of Firefly has to be a pretty good person themselves, whatever they base their philosophy on.
Well, I’m not a great fan of the word “evil” (that’s for another discussion maybe), but apart from that, I agree. People are complicated.
And then you make a lot of points, kinda mashed together. Touching the high-spots:
You assert the existence of a god, yet you’ve never yet shown evidence that your, or any, god exists.
I’m sure Remigius will correct me if I’m wrong here, but I seem to recall that the current thinking is that most cultures practised child-sacrifice at some point in their history. The story of Abraham nearly sacrificing his son is, most likely, a remnant of folk-traditions from the time when the various Jewish tribes were giving up the practice.
“Marxist atheism.” Grr. We’ve been over this. The persecution of religion in Leninist/Stalinist (not Marxist) Russia was not done so as to promote atheism, but in an attempt to decrease, or remove, the church as a route to political power, and/or as an organisation around which resistance could grow.
And there have been equally ugly societies where the Gospel was promoted and God acknowledged. The slave states in the USA, for instance.
Oh, and a technical point.
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