I'm posting it again:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9gFNwC8Qp4[/youtube]
Transcript:
Quote:
I know Christianity is not a violent death cult, not any more, anyway - but it certainly does some strange things to people's minds.
Like the idiot from West Virginia who died recently from a rattlesnake bite because he thought Jesus wanted him to handle serpents. He got the idea of handling poisonous snakes from his father. Guess what happened to his father. Stupid or insane? You decide. Although I think a strong case could be made for both. Or maybe it's just nature's way of cleaning up after itself. Evolution in action before our very eyes.
Every Easter in the Philippines there are people who have themselves nailed to crosses so that they can know the suffering of Jesus. Well, I reckon if Jesus is up there looking down at those people on their crosses, or at the people with rattlesnakes, he'll still be suffering. He'll be shaking his head and wondering why the hell he ever bothered. Especially when he looks around the world and sees millions of people worshipping him as a god like a bunch of savages, knowing full well it's not what he preached and it's the last thing he wants. He must tear his hair in frustration every time some imbecile prays to the graven idol of his crucified image like some juju doll. Or maybe he just laughs. What else can you do?
Either way, I wish he'd come back and do something about it because it's getting embarrassing, and besides, there's something I'd like to ask him.
He's supposed to come back anyway at some point to redeem the righteous, of course, and to vanquish the Antichrist, along with any Jews who refuse to convert to Christianity, so presumably he'll have to vanquish himself, unless he agrees to convert and start worshipping himself. Could get complicated.
I hope he turns up, though, not just for my sake, but for the sake of all those righteous folks who have their hearts set on having their souls saved. They'll be so disappointed if he doesn't make it, especially when they start thinking about all that money they've been tithing into the bank accounts of the multi-millionaires who run Christianity. That might be almost enough to make a person lose faith, and put down their rattlesnake. Also, of course, if he doesn't turn up it will mean that the last two thousand years of brutal superstitious Christian persecution were all for nothing, and what a shame it would be to waste all that self-destructive misery and guilt. After all, it has helped to make us who we are.
I wonder how Jesus will arrive. Do you think he'll come in a style befitting his glorious majesty, bursting through the clouds in a fiery chariot, slaughtering unbelievers and heretics, scything them down like ripe corn, as many believers hope and pray, or will he come on the bus?
The short answer is we just don't know. Even after centuries of abstruse and pointless speculation it remains one of the great theological mysteries.
One thing is for sure, though. If he turns up he'll be very popular. I wouldn't mind betting he'll be so popular he'll have to ride around inside a bulletproof glass box surrounded by bodyguards. Twelve of them, I reckon. Eleven good and one evil is my guess.
What I'd like to know is how we're supposed to recognise Jesus when he arrives because nobody actually knows what he looks like. Everyone seems to have created him in their own image, so that if you put all the different versions of Jesus together you'll end up with some kind of middle eastern oriental anglo-saxon blue-eyed black man. No wonder he was a one off. That's some special DNA, isn't it? But then that's Jesus for you. We know he was special. He was never just an ordinary human being. Yes, he was flesh and blood, but only as far as necessary for divinity to dip itself temporarily into the human mud pool. You want proof? He was born to a virgin. How much more proof do you need? The rest of us can only dream of being born to virgins, but to Jesus it was second nature, because he's so special. Everything about him was special. Everything he did was a miracle. He was such a superhero I'm surprised he didn't fly around wearing a cape with a big J on it.
And of course this is precisely how we'll recognise Jesus, when he actually does some of the superhero stuff we've been led to expect because this is not a gig for an imposter, after all. He needs to actually take on the Antichrist and give him a comprehensive spanking. That's not the kind of thing you can bluff. You've either got it or you haven't, and we know he has it because we know that when faced with adversity he can usually produce a miracle from his back pocket.
It's the miracles that make him special. Isn't that right?
I wonder if Jesus will do a few miracles to entertain the crowd while he's waiting for the Antichrist to show his cowardly face. Of course he will. He knows that's what people are really there for. He knows that if not for the miracles Christians wouldn't give him or his message the time of day. He knows that Christians need miracles because they don't have the wisdom or the moral backbone to follow his teachings without the goddamned miracles, so yes, he'll probably open a box of snakes or something to keep everybody happy. But the reason I'm looking forward to Jesus coming back is because I want to ask him why he disappeared so quickly after the resurrection without giving people a chance to verify it.
He must have known the uncertainty that would cause, and the centuries of righteous bloodletting that would inevitably ensue, which makes me wonder just how divine and godly this character really was. After all, he wasn't so shy about all the other miracles, was he? When it came to walking on water or feeding a multitude it was "Look at me, look at me, the Lamb of God is in the house..." Yet his final and greatest miracle, the only miracle that really matters, is the one miracle that nobody saw. Am I the only one who smells a rat here? Rising from the dead and ascending bodily into heaven; such a momentous event, surely that should have been a special occasion witnessed by at least a multitude - that's got to be minimum. Yet what happens? He disappears like a fugitive, like a thief in the night, skulking away as if he's got something to hide. Well, I think it stinks. And doubly so because it's been the direct cause of so much persecution and misery on this planet for the last two thousand years, all of it unnecessary, and all of it his fault.
So this is why I'm looking forward to his imminent and glorious return, because I would like to buttonhole Jesus and ask him directly if he's really working for Satan, just to see what he says.
Peace.
23 Jul 2012, 10:24 am
