I want to tell you a story about a righteous Bible-thumper. It may be a story you’re already familiar with, even though the people are likely folks you’ve never met, or even heard of.

A couple of relatives of mine, a mother and a daughter, were discussing the upcoming New Year’s festivities last week. The daughter mentioned to the mother that she might knock a couple back New Year’s Eve.

“Well I have never had a drink, and I don’t believe in putting alcohol in your body. It’s just wrong to drink alcohol,” the mother said. The mother then went on to cite some Bible phrases (of course) to the daughter.

“But Mom,” the daughter answered quite reasonably, “how can you say that it’s any worse to have a drink than to constantly pollute your lungs with tar?”

Mother, you see, is a smoker.

“That doesn’t make any sense, Mom,” the exasperated daughter said.

“Well it makes sense to ME” was the mom’s reply.

Hmm. So it makes sense to the righteous, never-had-a-drink mother that somehow smoking is a righteous Christian enterprise, while having a couple of casual drinks is not.

I wonder how Christ would have seen things? We have no direct word from Christ, of course, as he never encountered any smokers. Nor did the Apostle Paul, but we get some idea of how Christ would have seen smoking cigarettes from his Apostle.

“Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own? For you were bought with a price: Therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit which are God’s”.

That seems pretty cut and dried to me. I believe I can safely assume that Christ would have agreed wholeheartedly with his Apostle. I also believe that someone as devoutly righteous as the mother in our story is ought to know that verse, since she knows verses condemning alcohol.She has even condemned the daughter for having a few in the past; “you know you come from an addictive family!!!”

Indeed she does. Yes, indeed. Mommy and Daddy, both Bible-thumpers, have a house that I get headaches in within 30 minutes of entering. When my oldest daughter was a baby, I dared not take her there because there was a 100% chance the kid would have an ear infection the next day. I can say that at the very least, if those two were a couple that liked to knock back a few in the evening, my daughter would have come to no harm.

Anyhow…. we know that the Righteous Couple weren’t drinking to celebrate the New Year. How, then, did such a righteous pair decide to celebrate?

They went on a gambling excursion.

I shit you not.

I wondered what part of the Bible approved of gambling, so I did a little research. Actually, I didn’t need to do much research; one of Jesus Christ’s basic tenets is that we are to love our neighbors as we love God. A gambler, by definition, is looking to gain while others lose. Any attempt to gain something for nothing at the expense of others is a direct contravention of the teachings of Jesus Christ. It is, in fact, that simple.

No, I’m not surprised. The “values” bunch is always out to get something for nothing, which is why they scream like scalded cats at the very mention of any form of sacrifice on their part, be it in the form of taxation, or service to their neighbors, or military service; you name it. In spite of the fact that Christ spent his entire life helping other people, the modern “values” type sees that kind of thing as SOCIALISM, and we ain’t having any of that! The “values” type has, above all, one “value,” and that value is selfishness. So they don’t really care how many people get sick from their cigarettes, or how many problem gamblers will be ruined so they can make a killing at the slot machine, or how onerous the debt burden is on their children and grandchildren-in this new form of “Christianity” exalted by the likes of Chimpy and the Rushpubliscums, selfishness is a virtue, and compassion and service (remember Caribou Barbie’s mocking of the “community organizer”) are vices to be reviled.

The justifications they use make sense to THEM, but they ring pretty hollow in OUR ears. Most people of faith that I know of are pretty distressed at their “values” brethren and the roads they led us all down.

I’m pretty distressed too. I’m distressed that organized religion is a racket that absolves the congregant more for his or her standing in the pecking order than for any good deeds that he or she may do. I’m also distressed that good people of faith are automatically suspect in a lot of eyes because of the impact the “values” bunch has made on our society. My fervent hope for this era is that some of those Christians who actually believe in the word of Jesus Christ can actually steer the conversation for awhile, and hatemongering pieces of filth like Rick Warren, James Dobson, Ralph Reed, and the rest of those louts get sidelined.

I hope for it, but I don’t expect it.

Tags: hypocrisy, religion

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 3:56 am and is filed under Jesusistan, Jolly Roger, Soapbox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.