I came across this video on Facebook recently, have a look, it’s only 40 seconds.
The thing has had over 300,000 shares! That’s pretty impressive. The christians who are impressed with the concept are falling over themselves with excitement.
The video is instructive, primarily for Sunday School teachers. Can you imagine showing this to children? You are clean and pure, then sin comes along, uninvited and pours itself all over you. The only way to get clean is to have christ in your life.
That is really a horrible message.
I made my own version, with a science label instead of sin. Have a look – it’s only 23 seconds, it’s not as convoluted as religion and gets to the point much quicker.
It’s had about 50,000 shares on Facebook so far. Still got a way to go!
I’ve had more negative feedback on my short 23 second video than I have on my 50 minutes on television! I can feel the christian love.
People feel entitled to message me to tell me about their god. I don’t mind that. I don’t feel obliged to engage with them in any deep conversation. I’m polite and respectful to them, but quite adamant about where I stand on religion. Here’s a couple of my favourite conversations:
This one with Matt starts out by him asking me if I have read the bible, I tell him I have:
If you want to read the full transcript then here is Jennepher Petitt and Matt Sidney.
This conversation was of particular fun:
Here’s the full story: Δημήτριος Δεσποτικός
Just in case you want to make your own science experiment, it the Science jar I’ve put water and a dash of bleach. The christ jar has water and enough iodine to make it reddish/brown. The You cup is only water.
Just remember, it’s a little bit of chemical reaction, nothing more. You don’t have to put labels on them!
All a ‘god’ beaker would need in it is manure. Just saying.
Thank you for your brilliant work in talking with these people, it’s amazing how they take their bat and ball then run home once their ramblings got bounced back at them.
I had to have a chuckle at the one who said that they wouldn’t be a Christian if it wasn’t for prayer. For me, the journey went in the opposite direction, prayer and Bible study led me away from Christianity on my own journey. I was a bit too good at Bible study. I could see what they were trying to say, then see through it.
Now I have no issues with people believing what they like, and there are some good things in many religions (though often buried in dogma). For me, Christianity provided me with a good and familiar (as I had grown up in the Church of England) starting point for my own journey. I object to being told what I should believe. I’ve been on my own journey, so I’ve come to my own spiritual understanding in my own way, not had it handed down from a pulpit.
If Christianity works for someone, great! But religion is a personal thing, I don’t want to be forced into Christiasnity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or any other religion, and I certainly won’t force anyone to follow my path.
I’ve had plenty of the same argument and it always ends with them getting angry because there’s absolutely no way they can win the argument. Just like Matt Sidney above, they feel degraded because they can’t defend their beliefs and then the true hatred religious devotion inspires comes out.
I’m convinced that most people who choose (or for those raised in religious families choose to stay in) a religion do so for (1) political reasons (good church-goin’ folk are more likely to be elected as community leaders, and that comes with real political power), (2) because they just wanna go with the flow and don’t give a shit one way or the other, or (3) they’re self-esteem is so low they have to be accepted by some group. Besides, it offers them an ability to feel superior to others with no effort other than proclaiming their believe in God or Jesus or Muhammad or Buddha (who was an atheist, by the way) or Thor or Zeus or Peter Pan.
What’s better to someone with low self-esteem than to be able to “acceptably” vent their anger on someone everybody in the gang, er, sorry, congregation, agrees deserves it?