For The Love of Christ. (Like, For Real.)
So much of talking is just the other party being patient, waiting for their turn to speak again. So many arguments can be broken down to simply waiting for the moment to play the trump card, waiting until the one side's “rightness” is irrefutable.
What is the root of that? Ego. And your ego will always seek to overthrow your inner logic, the thing that tells you, “this is absurd.” All that your ego cares about is that you are the top shit on crap mountain. Even if it is as absolutely irrelevant as all that.
So they were braying about the afterlife because I had asked an innocuous enough question about it, based on my desire to understand what Jehovah’s Witnesses think happens when you die. (He had been on about how horrible the world was, what with Tsunamis and AIDs and such. What I don’t understand about most highly organized religion is, if it’s such a great thing, the afterlife, why is it such a horrible tragedy to die? Is this sophomoric??) Somehow we landed on the topic of judging how one religion could possibly be better than the next, and they asked to see my copy of the Bible.
He handled it as though it were a tool of the devil. Hyperbole aside. My only Bible is called, Quest: A Bible for Academic Study. Cause if I’m going to read about Abraham begatting Isaac, you’d better believe that I want the Norton historical references. Can I get a witness. No pun intended.
So, he quoted the scripture, “for surely through time, weeds will arise in your field of wheat,” meaning that people will come along and taint the “true” version of what Christ is teaching. This simple phrase in the bible was his entire platform. This phrase, in and of itself, was the reason that it is right to be a Jehovah’s Witness as opposed to, say, a Shiite.
Here is my point. I think it to be quite a simple point. Couldn’t the role of weed be applied to any ideology, as likewise the role of wheat could be applied to any religion? Catholics could just as easily point to this piece of scripture as proof positive for the strength of their religion.
Yet, I said nothing, and he went on to eight more sections of scripture whose elucidation was equally illogical. “And this proves…. what, exactly?” But, I kept my mouth shut. He has barely got his GED. He is a 22 year old part-time grocery teller desperate to have something to believe in. I could make swiss cheese out of his arguments, but it would annihilate his happiness and would only make me feel guilty. But the biting of my tongue is certainly a constant conscious process, and frequently involves actually biting my tongue. My fear is that he thinks he’s winning me over… he actually invited me to church this Sunday (I declined.) I’m still waiting for the piece of scripture that explains the “prophecy,” and why J.C. knew that in 1914 World War I would happen. For real now, this is supposedly in the Bible somewhere.
Do you ever suppose that perhaps you were dropped on this planet as a child, and that your alien family is cracking up somewhere via satellite, watching you interact with these strange creatures?
Why would God give a flying fuck about whether or not you say fuck, or if you drink a beer, or how often you've gone to church. I wouldn't want to put my faith in someone so.... human. Oh, these egos. Anthropomorphizing the creator.
What is the root of that? Ego. And your ego will always seek to overthrow your inner logic, the thing that tells you, “this is absurd.” All that your ego cares about is that you are the top shit on crap mountain. Even if it is as absolutely irrelevant as all that.
So they were braying about the afterlife because I had asked an innocuous enough question about it, based on my desire to understand what Jehovah’s Witnesses think happens when you die. (He had been on about how horrible the world was, what with Tsunamis and AIDs and such. What I don’t understand about most highly organized religion is, if it’s such a great thing, the afterlife, why is it such a horrible tragedy to die? Is this sophomoric??) Somehow we landed on the topic of judging how one religion could possibly be better than the next, and they asked to see my copy of the Bible.
He handled it as though it were a tool of the devil. Hyperbole aside. My only Bible is called, Quest: A Bible for Academic Study. Cause if I’m going to read about Abraham begatting Isaac, you’d better believe that I want the Norton historical references. Can I get a witness. No pun intended.
So, he quoted the scripture, “for surely through time, weeds will arise in your field of wheat,” meaning that people will come along and taint the “true” version of what Christ is teaching. This simple phrase in the bible was his entire platform. This phrase, in and of itself, was the reason that it is right to be a Jehovah’s Witness as opposed to, say, a Shiite.
Here is my point. I think it to be quite a simple point. Couldn’t the role of weed be applied to any ideology, as likewise the role of wheat could be applied to any religion? Catholics could just as easily point to this piece of scripture as proof positive for the strength of their religion.
Yet, I said nothing, and he went on to eight more sections of scripture whose elucidation was equally illogical. “And this proves…. what, exactly?” But, I kept my mouth shut. He has barely got his GED. He is a 22 year old part-time grocery teller desperate to have something to believe in. I could make swiss cheese out of his arguments, but it would annihilate his happiness and would only make me feel guilty. But the biting of my tongue is certainly a constant conscious process, and frequently involves actually biting my tongue. My fear is that he thinks he’s winning me over… he actually invited me to church this Sunday (I declined.) I’m still waiting for the piece of scripture that explains the “prophecy,” and why J.C. knew that in 1914 World War I would happen. For real now, this is supposedly in the Bible somewhere.
Do you ever suppose that perhaps you were dropped on this planet as a child, and that your alien family is cracking up somewhere via satellite, watching you interact with these strange creatures?
Why would God give a flying fuck about whether or not you say fuck, or if you drink a beer, or how often you've gone to church. I wouldn't want to put my faith in someone so.... human. Oh, these egos. Anthropomorphizing the creator.
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