Yeah, no. Religion needs to die out.
Jesus isn't real, and the church hates you. Don't read poetry that glorifies them or gives them any credibility. They will turn their backs on you at the first opportunity, trample over you if it makes their life easier, and when they look back at the road they've trod, they'll sleep well, repeating the mantra, "Homosexuality is a sin."
There is The Church and then there’s the church - once Christianity becomes large, structured, and hierarchical it strays from the actual words that Jesus spoke. If you ever have the chance, have a read through the Gospels without any of the other bullshit. Just read the stuff that Jesus himself supposedly said. Those words are full of love, care, kindness, sacrifice, giving, sharing, and fully giving up oneself in service of others. The example he set was a great one. I no longer identify as Christian, but Jesus is a damn good role model and actually taught us how to love one another exactly how we are.
I wouldn’t recommend my fellow comrades join some random church, but don’t discount Jesus’ teachings as a philosophical text. I honestly believe that if all Christians were actually Christ-like it would truly be a religion of peace, love and acceptance.
Amen! (sorry i couldn’t stop myself.)
I haven’t identified as Christian since reading the bible and realizing god is portrayed as some fucked up attention craving psycho.
But fictional Jesus is like the OG embodiment of woke. He doesn’t need to be real for the philosophy to be. If only more people followed his literal example.
Jesus is real. I love you. Those who hate you speak for neither Him nor for me.
The Gospel of Christ is love, and woe to those who knowing it use His name to cause suffering and death.
I'm sorry that people hurt you. That's not what Jesus taught, and that's not what He lived and died for.
When you say that you love me, do you mean it in the God's Love kinda way? Or the human love kinda way?
Cause God created hell and then told everyone to worship him, and if you don't, you go to there. He calls that love. I don't want that kind of love.
To paraphrase Stephen Fry, God gives children bone cancer. I don't want that kind of love.
God lets those that have unabashed hate for others live in his sanctuary and preach his message. I don't want that kind of love.
God lets his priests sexually abuse others. I don't want that kind of love.
God lets wars be carried out in his name. I don't want that kind of love.
God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of homosexuality. I don't want that kind of love.
You can talk about Jesus' teachings all you like, but actions speak louder than words. The Gospel of Christ is the love of an abusive partner. Say one thing, do another. God's love is a terrible thing, and I want nothing to do with it, and anyone who does is a coward. If, and it's a big if, if God is real, is he the kind of God you want to worship? Seems like a waste of effort at best, and a complete betrayal of others at worse. So, go ahead, spread his love around. Just remember what kind of love it is you are spreading.
Lmfao. 55 upvotes, 4 downvotes, and removed by mods. I'll just restate it for those that didn't see it. Jesus isn't real, the Church hates you. Don't elevate them by sharing poetry to make them seem less the monsters they are. If it makes their life easier, they will walk over your fallen body and they won't give it a second thought. When they go to sleep at night, they'll say their prayers and sleep well while repeating the mantra, "Homosexuality is a sin."
I think understand where you're coming from, but this type of poem is exactly what needs to be spread in order to make "Christians" feel some cognitive dissonance about their hypocrisy.
I may be misinterpreting you, but it sounds like you're trying to justify your hatred for a group of people because you believe in a "greater good"; some sort of better world that would exist if religion disappeared. That's exactly the sort of mindset that christians and many others have used to justify their cruelty.
I don't believe in a "greater good", I believe that we are all responsible for being the best person that we can be. I think religion is a waste of time, yes. I think the world would be better off without, yes. However, if your religion is harmless, then I don't care what you do. I only care when your religion is actively harming the world. You can't be part of a hate group but claim to be part of a love group.
Jesus is a failed apocalyptic prophet from the iron age. He wasn't resurrected, and the narratives written by the biblical authors had their own agendas. The scholarly consensus remains that the OT and NT are not univocal, not divinely inspired and not inerrant. It's a historic work, but is not a strong chronicle of history but of mythology, like The Illiad.
But ministries are always going to take advantage of common mythologies and ideologies to manipulate the people. They are, after all, for-profit institutions in a capitalist market, or before were a nexus of political power. They remain places that serve themselves, not the people.
We can even note that the message of Christianity has changed with time to serve the ministries, to reflect the mores of the culture at the time, though in the 20th century, there was an active effort to shift Protestant Evangelical Christianity in the United States towards American Exceptionalism, far-right conservatism, anti-communism, pro-patriarchy and pro-hierarchy, resulting in the Christian nationalist movement we are facing today. The movement that wants to purge LGBT+ and non-Christians, and force women to become breeding mares is the product of decades of willful manipulation. As some sociologists and historians who are Evangelist, themselves have observed, this may well kill Christianity as we know it today, making it the de-facto bad-guy the way Nazis (the old German Reich ones) have been for the last century.
In the meantime, the poet is doing something different. In this case, it serves the same role as other internal mentors and heroes. In Dialectical Behavior Training (DBT, related to CBT -- the other CBT) imagining what Wonder Woman, or Captain America, or Obi-Wan Kenobi, or Jesus Christ might say to you taps into that part of you that loves you unconditionally, beyond the fear that you don't fit into mainstream society. Jay Hulme is seeing within himself someone that loves and regards him and accepts him for who he is, which is a critical step for all of us, especially those of us who didn't have others to do the job.
(This can also be applied to other media that celebrates the love of Jesus or the love of a mentor, such as I Don't Deserve You by Plumb or The Wind Beneath My Wings by... two songwriters -- Jeff Silbar and Larry Henley -- and performed a whole lot of artists)
Amen!
And then the boy died of cancer.
It was a brain tumor. Nothing wrong with his heart
The wikipedia article on Hulme is in shambles. What exactly happened to him?
This post is so strange
