The God-forsakin' Blog

  *Deadpool/ Wolverine spoilers ahead* No really, this will spoil the entire plot of the film if you haven't seen it yet, DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE. Okay, you were warned. Be it upon thine own head. Jesus and Deadpool. What a pair. One is a fictional character loosely based on a real person, a loudmouthed iconoclast who pisses off authority figures and hangs out with sex workers and willingly gives his life to save the world then comes back to life... and so is the other. You know what's funny about Evangelicals being mad at Deadpool over the "Marvel Jesus" thing? If they thought about it for a second, they'd realize it's actually complimentary to Jesus. Deadpool is saying that he strives to be the kind of man willing to endure torture and death in order to save his friends. That is the one thing he could do to feel like he matters - despite having already done lots of heroic things, THIS is the image of a true hero to him. In other ...

When conservative Christians are called out for their support of hateful politicians and policies, they often insist that they are acting out of love for their god, not hate for their neighbor.  And b ack when I was a conservative Christian, I too would have insisted that I loved my neighbor. And it took me far longer than it should to see that I was working from a definition of "love" that was not on speaking terms with actually loving people.  I couldn't say that I loved my gay neighbor if I supported policies and politicians that would stop him from marrying the person he loved.  I couldn't say that I loved my trans neighbor if I was forcing her to use the men's room, where she would be in great danger of being beaten up (or worse) by conservative Christian men.  I couldn't say I loved my immigrant neighbor if I was forcing him to choose between breaking the law to enter a safe country or die in his home country.  I couldn't say I loved my female neighb...

  I was talking with an agnostic Jewish friend today about conversion and de-conversion and realized something: I feel a lot more urgency to try and convert people FROM Christianity than I ever did to try and convert them TO Christianity.  Even though I used to believe eternity was on the line, a bit of me still felt that if there was a god who truly was perfectly just, he wouldn't ACTUALLY consign a decent person to everlasting hellfire just because they didn't believe in him. As long as they BEHAVED the way Jesus would have wanted. After all, even some Biblical verses implied that there would be people who professed belief yet would not be saved, and people who would be surprised to find themselves saved. But knowing that we only have this one life, and Christians are wasting theirs - at best, by simply wasting their Sunday mornings, and at worst, by using their time to make everyone else's lives worse by their actions and especially by their votes - makes it feel much mo...

 I haven't read Marx, but I have heard that one line about religion being the opiate of the masses, and I think now that I don't have a religion anymore I finally see what he meant: Religion gives powerless people a fantasy of power, to distract them from the fact of their powerlessness and keep them from doing anything about it.