Meditation 1321
The Supplicant's Religion
by: Jethro Tuviere
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The major fault with the Christian God, or Hebrew Yahweh, is his all too glaring humanity. In the beginning, we are artistically cowed into revering him and trembling in awe at the power of this ancient, all-powerful and mysteriously distant being whose random acts of cruelty(the death of Uzzah, the blessing of Jacob, the curse on Moses, the punishment of king Saul) were answered by placing him sacrosanctly beyond question;...last I checked that was called tyranny and tyrants (who are very human, I think) are birthed from fear. A God who acts like a scared bully with a fragile, juvenile ego many times his size...if you're mythology conversant, that should sound familiar.
Of utmost interest however, is his intensely irrational need to be acknowledged. Fear me. Love Me. Worship Me."...That they may know that I am your God." His biggest fear is obscurity, so insecure in his being, he feels the need to re-assert his dominance and superiority at every given opportunity, full of the very same hubris that ensured Lucifer's damnation for eternity. Equally important, is the very egregious reticence of the religion's propagators to delve fully into the nature of the "Other side", while constantly parroting the virtue in listening to both sides of a story, the only explanation given is an extremely nebulous phrase: "... And pride entered into Lucifer's heart". Zippo. Just like that, he was damned for eternity; for the irony of daring to believe that he was like his maker. There it is folks; the great Aramaic poser: a life-time of slavery to an all-powerful imaginary "friend", or a walk outside the boundaries of Christianity, where awaits a gleaming pitchfork, pyrotechnics and a begrudged ex-choir master...the audacious are not welcome here.
The underlying brilliance of Christianity lies in its usage of salvation as a mask for oppression, sell your soul to an unknown entity and then convince yourself of your immunity from that one supreme(needless to say,futile) fear: Death. You pay heavily for your bondage and feel profound gratitude to your Father/Captor/Boss* for your gilded chains. Zeus, Susanoo-ono-mikoto, Krishna, Baal, Perun, Ra, Osanobua. All testaments to man's innate proclivity to the divine, now casualties of the psychological attrition of the Christian gospel, their empty shrines and desolate courtyards, an attestation as clear as a bell peal.
This insidious oppression began when the conquerors swooped in all their imperialism, and took with them their religion, and after cowering and subduing the locals, easily convinced them of the rightness of serving the God of the victorious army. A being of limitless power who rewards his followers with immortality and riches, thus drawing on their intrinsic need for validation, the allure of an alignment with such power, the promise of post-life gratification and his fear of death and the unknown, the hoodwinked fellow is congratulated on demonising his beliefs. Armed with the assurance of the bounty of heaven, he ever so steadily, fills his head with the rhetoric of a conqueror.
Self-limitation, Slavery and Cowardice are the fruits of Christianity** and I am convinced that if there is a God, he is not to be found here, and if he is; then he is way too human to ever satisfy. That as it is, simply will not do.
Footnotes:
* Different opinions abound on this relationship in Christianity
** Most third-world countries
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