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Meditation 1320
We're not worthy

by: John Tyrrell

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Over the years, church signs have inspired a number of my Meditations, largely because they take my thoughts in the opposite direction to which those who put up the sign intended. This one which recently went up at a nearby church is one such example. To me it sums up what is wrong with the teachings of many Christian denominations, and the teachings of many other religions.

What is the underlying message here?* We don't deserve anything good that happens to us, and the bad things that happen to us are not as bad as we deserve. Or - we deserve to be up to the eyeballs in deep dung, and if we are already there, we deserve to be even deeper in the dung. And if we are not, well it's ... [because Jesus.]

What a depressing and thoroughly obnoxious view of life! I wonder why the average Christian would want to go on living.

The only purpose of putting such a message on a church sign is to bully believers into being thankful to an entirely obnoxious deity. I much prefer to be thankful for that deity's non-existence.

Notes:

* The sign may be a reworking of a quotation by Cathleen Falsani - a religion columnist who self-identifies on her website and instagram as @godgrrl:

“Justice is getting what you deserve.
Mercy is not getting what you deserve.
And grace is getting what you absolutely don't deserve.”

But she may very well have recycled it from other much older Christian teachings

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