What God Really Meant to Say

Oct 11, 2009

For those of you who don’t know my personal history with religion, I need to give this brief preface: I was raised as a Christian and attended Christian schools, but have since changed my mind and now follow a Buddhist path.

I say changed my mind, because there isn’t really a formal church-leaving ceremony. When you go in, you get baptised and take communion. But there isn’t an opposite, a divorcing yourself, if you will. The terms are “backslidden” if you still mostly believe but don’t participate, “excommunicated” if you did something they don’t approve of and you get kicked out, but if you go that one step further and think… nah… Nevermind…I’m done here… there’re just no words.

I was, at one time, devout. Even now I know there are truths and valuable lessons in the Bible.

Right, so what the eff is up with these people who keep re-translating the Bible until it reflects their own bias? Sure, make the bible readable. English changes so much over the centuries that we don’t really have a choice if we want a text to be understood. I don’t expect people to read Beowulf, for example, in the West Saxon dialect of Old English:

Hwæt. We Gardena in gear-dagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

That’s incomprehensible, so yeah, make the Bible accessible and readable, but the latest translation effort I’ve heard of is to make the Bible less liberal. Since when is liberal a bad thing? Freedom and liberty are values that we in the West treasure, but all of a sudden liberal = evil. Don’t even get me started about the big scary s-word (yes, I mean socialism). Some of the Conservative Bible Project guidelines seem reasonable, such as “Not Dumbing Down The Text”. But “Expressing Free Market Principles in Economic Parables”? Really? That’s where you want to go in your relationship with God? Really?

This is the kind of attitude that made me run for the hills.

Why does a political party get to claim a religion all to themselves, even going so far as to translate the Bible with their political agenda in mind? It seems Christianity is getting more exclusive rather than more inclusive, and that bothers me. In its purest form, Christianity is a beautiful religion with peace, brotherhood and forgiveness at the forefront of all things. Why wouldn’t people with liberal political beliefs be just as interested in those concepts as anyone else? In fact, the biggest peace-mongers I know are liberals.

So if we don’t like someone’s political objectives, we not only hate them ourselves, but we make sure it’s clear that god hates them too? One of the coolest things I’ve learned about the most conservative Christian I’ve heard of, Puritan theologian Roger Williams, was his charity toward non-believers. They were going to burn in hell later anyway, and wasn’t that punishment enough? I like that attitude. I really do.

So, enough of my unfocused bitching. I’ll close my sermon with the Beatitudes from Matthew Chapter 5  as translated in the Modern LOLCat Version: (Cheezburgers are blessings and god is “Ceiling Cat”, for those unfamiliar with LOLCats.)

teh catitudes

1 Wen he seez lotz kittehz, he climbz tree. His BFz climbz tree too.

2 He sez hai and he teaches teh kittehs, he sez:

3 Cheezburgrz 4 teh n00b kittehs, theys can has teh Ceiling.

4 Cheezburgrz 4 teh sad kittehs, theys can has petting.

5 Cheezburgrz 4 teh m33k kittehs, theys can has teh urfs.

6 Cheezburgrz 4 teh kittehs who sez “I can has gud, plz?”, theys can has it.

7 Cheezburgrz 4 teh kittehs dat no pwns, Ceiling Cat no pwnz0rz thems.

8 Cheezburgrz 4 teh kittehs wiff purr in hartz, theys can sees Ceiling Cat.

9 Cheezburgrz 4 teh kittehs dat sez shhhhh!, Ceiling Cat is liek “u mai kittehs.”

10 Cheezburgrz 4 teh kittehs dat gets pwned by otehrs fur haz gud, theys can has teh Ceiling too.

11 Cheezburgrz if otehrs be liek “DO NOT WANT” 2 u, an liez abt u, coz of meh.

12 B teh happys n party, coz u can has cookiez n cakez in Ceiling. Iz liek wen theys been liek “DO NOT WANT” to all teh holee kittehs b4.