Very good post green_revolution, I couldn't have said it better myself, to me Religion is a personal choice. I believe in a careing and forgiving God and I believe he is everywhere. :sunglasse
Dis-organized religion. This narrative deals primarily with questions of faith and belief in God, I will try my level best to refrain from the use of foul and unreasonable language. Other things will be used to take the place of these ill-spoken words such as sarcasm and satire which will still piss off the extreme right-wing redneck church goers but might not have as bad an effect on the Almighty Himself who is well known to have a reasonable sense of humor. I discovered the Lord’s penchant for subtle humor buy studying the many works attributed to Him from the Middle East and all around the world. I first had an inkling of this humor when as a child I read the book of Exodus. In the book there is the story of Abram and his dealings with Egyptian whores, feuding neighbors, humorless wives and God Himself. My favorite tail found poor Abram on the mountain negotiating a contract of some sort with the Lord. The Lord and His Hosts looked down upon Abram and sought some method of determining if Abram was of such an un-beguiling personality that he could be trusted to carry off what ever it was the God needed done...or just for some sport to liven up the dull and uncertain times. I will pick up the story with what I am reasonably certain was happening on God’s side of the cloud as He and They looked upon the be-robed and sullen figure. God puts his hand over the heavenly microphone and then… “Watch this…watch this,” The Lord whispers to his cohorts. “Ah—hem…Abram,” Says the Lord from the cloud in a deep scary baritone. “Yes God,” the fearful and trembling yokel falls to his knees and then answers back. “As proof of your steadfast honesty…” snortle, snortle. “Yes Lord?” Abram hears the snortling and mistakes it for thunder rumbling in the heavenly blue. Hand covers the mike again... “Dig this shit,” God whispers to all the Angels. “Ah—hem…As proof I want you to,” pauses for effect once more. “Yes Lord?” Abram is about to shit himself at this point. “I want you to,” another pause with a lot of Angelic snortling. “I want you to cut off the end of your dick!” at this point I am sure the snortling was of such a loud and cacophonous nature that it sounded like a major storm brewing. “Cut off…cut of what, Lord????” Abram is in shock with this divine command and trembling in utter confusion at the revelation of divine intent. “Your dick Abram…you must cut of the end of your dick!” There is snortling to high heaven now. Being a good sort of fellow…God fearing and all, Abram wants to please the Almighty as much as he can, but this dick thing is a pretty tall order. Abram swallows hard and with a wavering voice looks back up into the cloud. “How…how mu—much should I cut off…of my dick I mean???” There is a huge out break of snortling…God can barely collect himself to answer. “I will grant thee a pass on thy whole rod,” Trying to sound august and respectable. “Thy tip end will do…or just that useless piece of skin that gets in the way all the time.” “The nut-sack, Lord…do you men the nut-sack????” Abram is confused and terrified. If he jews too hard the lord might make him take the whole thing off; caution is called for. “No, you little desert monkey…just the foreskin.” Abram pauses now…confused and uncertain…”cut of what,” is bounding through his simple skull and royally screwing with his desert-rat mind. He is wondering what the hell the foreskin is. The snickering and snortling from up above is reaching a fever pitch about now. God looks around at his companions whom I am sure were crying with laughter and the heavenly tears were adding to the storm effect down on the ground. The Lord covers the mike with his hand once more and winks at some of the Host. “Oh this is going to be sweet, just watch!” The Lord is holding his sides and the Host is rolling on the floor. “There is more…” God continues, “You need to do one other thing.” “Yes Lord…anything Lord,” Abram is now on his knees with a dull knife in his hand about ready to snip his love toy. “You need to…” He winks again at the Host and the snortling is contagious. “You must cut off the ends of the dicks of everyone you know, too…” I imagine that the laughter and snortling in heaven was so loud that it shook the entire mountain about then. Abram for his part went down from the mountain and begin “bobbing” the men and boys all around the neighborhood. That he was able to accomplish this and inspire generations of folks to keep at this sadistic practice for the next three thousand years is a testament to the powers of heavenly weed. This practice continued and the Hebrews took it on good faith that if they cut off the ends of their dicks they would get special consideration from Heaven. So these devout, short dick fellows would get on their knees and pray to God. Now prayer is often times akin to rubbing the Jennie’s bottle. What you ask for and what you get is open to the interpretation and the mood of the Almighty. For generations Jewish fathers got on there callused-knees and diligently prayed for lots of sons and profits. The Lord answered these prayers with lots of sons and prophets. There is a subtle but humorous difference. These prophets and not profits were a dark hearted and sullen lot prone to outbreaks of condemnation and finger pointing. It finally got to the point that the Jewish people in general grew tired of their nonsense and began to inflect bodily harm on these morose fools. The constant haranguing and bitching grew to such a fever pitch that the Jewish mothers stepped in to see if they could correct the situation. These fine ladies took to their knees, which is often the same tactic used today before a short trip to Bloomingdale’s. Once upon their knees they prayerfully ask the Lord to rescind his plague of prophets and instead grant them many sons who would be of a gay and cheerful character…laughter filled children that would inspire others to good humor. The Lord chuckled and granted their request and sent them many sons…who all became comedians. The gay portion of the request has probably been answered as well but I choose not to delve into that topic. To this day most comedians are of Jewish descent proving that the arrangement was satisfactory to both parties...which reminds me very little of where I was going with is narrative. The many sermons that I sat through as a child were death on the many fleshly vices that abound in polite society. We were extolled and generally educated on these affairs every Wednesday night, Sunday mornings and Sunday evenings. This education became an entire week long affair about every quarter when a hooting and hollering church revival would be held. This was a lot of indoctrination with far more detail and good advice than most young men should encounter at an early age, and if one wants to know of and be tutored in the fleshly sins and carnal vices of the world then the best plan is to attend a country church revival once or twice in your life. The topic is taken up with such force and clarity that an education can’t help but be had. We should be cautious, however of taking young and impressionable minds to such events where these various sins are held to such low esteem. It is a bit scary, perhaps that men of God should go to such great lengths to explain all of the sins and vices for which a person could be condemned to eternal hell-fire. I listened intently every service at the constant advice and assumed that these august and worldly brethren were drawing a road map of sorts to the most pleasurable and expedient ways to achieve damnation. At an early age I knew that I was hell-bound anyway and was grateful for the advice to expedite the process. The Evangelical, Old-Time-Gospel revival prayer meetings were something to behold. Many of the parishioners were crack athletes and often times these pew-jumpers-par-excellence could be seen out front of the tent half an hour or so before the show began stretching the hamstrings and other sundry muscles and ligaments that would be necessary for the evening’s cavorting. A few would jog in place and others did pushups and jumping jacks to ensure that the blood was flowing before the event. The meetings began in a subdued almost reverent manner. Song was had, and prayer was offered. Soon, however all partiality to order and decorum was thrown to the wind and a loud hooping and hollering became the backdrop to all the other side shows that began in utter chaos around the tent. The village idiots in the front row actually had the best seats in the house. They got to observe without obstruction whatever went on in the center ring of this prayerful circus. Those farther back in the congregation only caught glimpses of the main event unless they became part of it and many a man or woman chose that course. The established and entirely mandated rhythm of the prayerful vocalizations was a very loud and almost “ah, hah” like beginning followed quickly buy a softer and much faster mumble, mumble, mumble. This cadence was not too dissimilar to Colonel Billy’s auctioneering style but, where as Colonel Billy performed alone, great sections of the congregation were auctioning articles of faith each at his own pace and each at his own rhythm. Sometimes, although rarely, they all fell into the same general stride but more likely these folks were babbling loudly at random. The cacophony of prayerful dissonance was something to behold. Then came laying-on and slapping-back. Laying-on was a kind of a general mild mugging whereby one individual was surrounded by a large group of parishioners and they all proceeded to lay-on hands and shrilly extol the poor fool for his gross and unbridle sinning excesses. The nearly inconsolable victim, who usually crouched in the center of the huddle, trembled with outright fear and despair fearing an onslaught of blue thunderbolts from heaven and an untimely demise. Slapping-back was a more esoteric art. Slap-backs were performed solely by a select few in the command of the organization and it was done with great audacity and showmanship. Some victim would volunteer by stepping forward toward the ring master and then several stout fellows would quickly place themselves behind the victim to catch him or her during the fall that always ensued when the ringmaster quickly and with great force struck the fool on the forehead with his open hand. The first time it happened I was caught unprepared and I mistakenly believed that a fist fight was breaking out up front in amongst all of the other commotion. Having seen enough bar fights in the old black and white cowboy movies as a kid, I knew that it was my responsibility to sucker-punch someone close at hand at that exact moment…which I did. After all of the discussion of the sins of the flesh, carnal lust and the mortal dangers of strong drink, I was primed to behave in a manner consistent with the topics of discussion and so were a number of others in the hall. This then led to a considerable bit of confusion and mayhem before it was sorted out as there were quickly a number of other folks that had started punching, gouging, biting and scratching one another, too. There were at least three folks that were bodily thrown to the floor and one stout lady had the preacher in a headlock. But then I saw a line of folks who had qued up to be slapped-back and I deduced that it must be the tent-revival version of a carnival ride or some such attraction, so I quickly stopped kicking the lady that I had just thrown under the pew. She seemed grateful and I helped her to her feet with little harm having been done. Just then I spied a young lady on her knees speaking in what I had been taught were “tongues.” This is a peculiar fetish of some open air assemblies and small country church halls that dates from the times of the bearded folks in the Bible. She spoke a stream of loud and confusing gibberish that all others present believed to be an ancient or foreign language. No one there spoke an ancient language let alone a foreign language so proof of the claim was lacking, but what I do know is that late on a Saturday night just before this Sunday service…many such Saturdays in fact…and for many other weekend nights after this, this same mouth and these same knees were used for an entirely different purpose less fitting to the work of God perhaps but still worthy of considerable praise. It was not just her but several young ladies in the congregation and some of the young men too, were far less Godly when out of the tent then they were in it.
there is nothing wrong with liberty or religion,just they way they are used.Example:We went in to "liberate" Iraq.We use liberty like it is our religion.We do things in their names forgetting that it's all about the people,not the idea.God and liberty is on our side.Bullshit,god and liberty don't take sides.
To believe in God and believe in religion (the current definition of way its been used these days) are not one and the same. God exists with or without religious orginizations.
It's only people's attempt to explain what is and why.Nothing wrong in itself.The problem comes from the way it's used.Ideas such as liberty can also bring enslavement.Liberty now becomes our god and everything done in it's name becomes "rightous".
yoh all iz lost in yohr confusion uv self importac. Any thing yuou-all believe, iz yohr belief or religion, you have 2 believe what ever you believe, believe me .
I'm a Christian, and I go to church...but its a modern forward thinking church, I think people tend to confuse "organisation" with some old dude standing at the front of a chilly hall preaching fire and brimestone. When in a lot of instances its just not that at all. I find going to church helps me learn more about my faith, meet others and get to discuss this kind of thing, it gives guidance without laying down "you WILL do this, you WILL do that" hell without a degree of organisation we're just wandering around with no clear path.
