{"id":9402,"date":"2005-12-27T20:52:10","date_gmt":"2005-12-28T01:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2005\/12\/27\/bless-them-that-curse-you\/"},"modified":"2005-12-27T20:52:10","modified_gmt":"2005-12-28T01:52:10","slug":"bless-them-that-curse-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2005\/12\/27\/bless-them-that-curse-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Bless them that curse you"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adam Felber<\/a> is not feeling the Christmas spirit.<\/p>\n

And I started thinking about Christmas, and I realized that somehow I no longer thought highly of Jesus. Examining it, I realize that it’s because of a lot of very recent things. It’s because of Bill O’Reilly and his Fox News cronies yelling about the “War on Christmas.” It’s because of an increasingly loud and angry bunch of Jesus fans who seem to have jettisoned the whole tolerance-and-peace thing in favor of getting Jesus into as many public places as possible as though there was little difference between a cross and a Nike swoosh. It’s because of a President who clearly sees our current war as the struggle between the Friends of Jesus and the Friends of Mohammed, as though there were no other teams and as though that conflict was the same as one between God and Satan or Good and Evil. When presidents go to war for Jesus, when preachers call for political assassinations, when America’s undisputed top-dog religion starts acting like a bat-worshipping cult lobbying for its first tax exemption… well, it gets harder and harder to feel any affection for the team mascot.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m very much anti-religion in the sense that I think it’s a mistake<\/em>; it’s just not a correct way of thinking about our universe. But for the most part I’m pretty neutral on whether or not religion’s overall impact is good or bad. It’s obviously extremely influential (which is why it’s worth explaining over and over why it’s not right), but the influences for good and the influences for bad are both so dramatic that it’s hard to do an accuate accounting. I like the music and the art, and I am sincerely appreciative of the community-building and charitable aspects of religion. I’m not so fond of the twisted sexual morality and warlike fanaticism that is often part of the package.<\/p>\n

But Felber’s right that the obnoxious aspects of religion, or at least of Christianity, are momentarily ascendant. I’ve never been sympathetic to claims along the lines of “Jesus was a wonderful guy, even if his followers are occasionally problematic.” Jesus died two thousand years ago, without leaving any writings of his own or even any first-person account of his teachings, and claims about who truly understands him have been going on ever since. Jesus is nothing but<\/em> the actions of his followers, and they’ve been quite a turn-off lately.<\/p>\n

Matthew 5:43-45<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.<\/p>\n

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;<\/p>\n

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Modern interpretation<\/a>:<\/p>\n

You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say: you helped this [Sept. 11th] happen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“Did God have anything to do with Katrina?,” people ask. My answer is, he allowed it and perhaps he allowed it to get our attention so that we don’t delude ourselves into thinking that all we have to do is put things back the way they were and life will be normal again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or simply<\/a>:<\/p>\n

[I]f you are really offended, you gotta go to Israel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adam Felber is not feeling the Christmas spirit. And I started thinking about Christmas, and I realized that somehow I no longer thought highly of Jesus. Examining it, I realize that it’s because of a lot of very recent things. It’s because of Bill O’Reilly and his Fox News cronies yelling about the “War on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9402\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}