Reading the Bible is Like doing Crystal Meth...

Let's say you are in a convenience store. Someone comes in waving a gun and is going to rob the place. He's aiming the gun at the head of a teenager who just happened to pick up this shift after school. She can't open the register, so the gunman decides he's going to kill someone cause he's pissed. He cocks the gun, and aims it at the person standing right next to you. Do you:

1. push the person out the way to safety?
2. yell "No!" and get yourself shot by accident?
3. look on in horror as the person gets shot?
4. turn to that person and say, "Hey, I'll save you from that bullet, but only if you acknowledge me as your lord and savior"?

Three of those are perfectly normal responses and/or scenarios...

The fourth option is something only the Christian god does.

---

So they say he came and died for all your sins. All of them. Except--disclaimer!!--you're still going to hell because you didn't say, "Hey, thanks, dude!"

What?!?! God needs to hear you say, "Thanks, I believe," before he rescues you from hell? Ask any conservative--hell, most Christians for that matter--and they'll say, "Yes, unless you confess and believe that Christ died for your sins, you will go to hell." Period. End of story. You may be thinking, How is this a loving god? <--a perfectly rational thought, I assure you...

If I could shove that person out of the way to save them from the bullet, I wouldn't care of they were grateful or not. Sure, I'd be peeved if they didn't seem grateful at the moment, but I wouldn't then regret saving them from death. I mean, come on, she was going to get shot, for god's sake. Now don't get me started on a god that even allows us to invent guns or have the ability to kill another. He screwed us up, that's his issue. But to say that we're getting eternal punishment for

• an inherited "sin" nature that we had no control over? and
• god's ego?

I don't think so. I posed this to another person once, a conservative Christian. I said, "I wouldn't not save a person just because they weren't going to admit I saved them." And he replied, "But they're still going to die eventually. With God as your savior, you get eternal life." To which I replied, "Um, hello? You are going to die. You are going to croak, like everyone else, and be viewed in a casket, and then have six feet of dirt piled on you just like everyone else. YOU STILL DIE." And he said, "But I will go to heaven. You won't. The old lady won't. Your brother won't." Maybe it's a mind set... Maybe reading the bible is like doing crystal meth... Who knows? And yes, I was answered with just a hint of smugness and an apparent missing of the point that he was still going to die... and thought he was then going to have eternal life...

I'm sorry, my idea of a loving god, if one were to exist, wouldn't need his ego stroked to save his own creation from hell. Or any other kind of bad thing, for that matter. Would any of you parents not help your child if they didn't "give you props"? Acknowledge your helping hand? I think any good parent, regardless of their child's amount of gratefulness, would still want to lay down their life for their kid. I know I would die in a heartbeat if I knew it would save any of my siblings, their kids, my friends, my parent's, even my stupid grandmother. I wouldn't first turn to them and say, "Hey, I'll die for you, but first you must promise to build a temple in my name, and subvert indigenous people to worship my memory. You have to live every day living and doing things that I would have done. But only then will I die for you. Oh, and I must cross your mind every day, once a week minimum!"

No, I'd step in front of the bus / gun / avalanche / car/ rifle / virus / what-have-you. No questions, no restrictions, no "sign on the dotted line."

If your god needs that ego stroke so badly, he doesn't need it from me. I'd rather curse him from hell.