By Tom “Heathen” Waters
August 1, 2002
Organized religion is the
biggest shakedown of a sham of a snake oil show in recorded history.
I don’t understand how so many people get rooked into throwing away
one day out of the week for their entire lives and pissing away money on
institutions that misappropriate it, plant guilt into the masses, and
psychologically scar their children. It sickens me. As far as non profit
organizations go, they should be shot. There’s a tiny, molecular good
that churches accomplish for their communities, but the negative far
outweighs the positive. I fell from grace a long, long time ago. And
you know something? I prefer it down here in the palace of earthly delights.
The brimstone is good for my corns. If there’s a god in heaven, he’ll
understand that we’ve all got more important things to do on a sunday.
They’ve conducted studies
that prove that the farther you rise on the IQ scale, the lower the
odds are that you attend church or subscribe to some bankrupt theological
fairy tail. Stay with me here! Focus! In older versions of the bible
they had chapters dealing with dragons. Dragons! But they were taken
out and revised to make the rest of the book a little less ridiculous.
I’m not just picking on the Catholics or the Christians or the Baptists
or the Methodists, either. I’m ripping on all of them. The world doesn’t
need a crutch to get past hard times. And please don’t misunderstand.
My beef is with churches, not spirituality. There’s nothing wrong with
looking to a higher power for help or guidance, or to be a better person.
I just wouldn’t go looking for him/her/it under the roof of some Presbyterian
or Anabaptist shyster, is all.
I spent a lot of my teenage
years shopping around for God. I spent the first ten years of my life
as a Catholic, another seven as a Mennonite, and after that, I drifted
and experimented. Mormonism, Buddhism, Baptists; you name it, and I
looked into it. Mormon beliefs are completely insane. They believe that
once the Rapture approaches that X amount of people will just levitate
up into the heavens, leaving the rest of us to suffer the plagues and
the fires and the horribly nasty things that go along with an Apocolypse.
Well my question is this: Mormons have been around for a very long time,
and I would assume that they already have X amount of people in their
flock, so why the hell do they keep going door to door and bothering
us with their incessant joy-babbling scripture pitches? Leave us alone!
Leave us heathens to our sinning (which we take very seriously) and
go off and sit on your own doorsteps and wait for the Jesus whirlwind
to take you away from us! Good riddance, you lunatics!
Buddhism, in my opinion,
is completely bankrupt. Two of my friends are Buddhists and I just don’t
get it. They chant, sure, but what’s chanting other than positive reinforcement?
If you wish for something enough, you can repeat the lyrics to “Oops
I did it again” a thousand times and get what you want. Does that make
Britney Spears a deity? She may have a heavenly body, but I don’t think
so. According to Sara, (one of the wacky Buddhist twins), Buddhism is
being at peace with who you are. Okay, then that makes everybody a Buddhist.
I don’t buy it. I read Kerouac and it didn’t take. Put the sponge away,
you moonies, cause you’re not brainwashing me with that ‘peace; best
offer or free’ shit.
I even went to a meeting
recently and put it to ‘em straight; I’m an angry person. I enjoy being
angry and will ALWAYS enjoy being angry. Happiness can go off and find
some puppy dogs or star-crossed couples and work it’s magic on them.
Anger is more important to me than inner tranquility, so slap Buddha
in his big man tits and tell him to shill his dogmas elsewhere. Most
of the people who say they’re Buddhists really mean that they mixed
and matched certain tenants to suit their own needs. Spirituality is
not a salad bar; you either take all of it or none of it. There are
a lot of concepts that I agree with, but don’t count me into the chanting
circle anytime soon. So put that karma in your hash pipe and smoke it.
The big issue I have with
most Christian establishments and the myriad of mutations and off shoots
they have (anything with an “ist” or an “ian” at the end of it) is their
completely irrational belief that in order to be a good devotee or crony
of the lord you have to sequester yourself away from popular culture.
So if I signed up for their buffets and offerings and all the other
frequent perks that come with being part of the Holier than You club,
I would a)never be able to watch an R movie again, b)have to stay away
from popular rock, rap, and death metal, and c)have to tell every stripper
within a three hour drive that I wouldn’t be coming in any more, which
would seriously cleft my frigging heart in twain.
I read up on the baby Jesus
and he led a wild life. Jesus didn’t go around pedaling purity. He just
hung out with people. He didn’t tell them they had to change or that
they were going to roast in the eternal George Forman Grill that is
hell. He loved them for who they were and eventually, they came around
to his way of thinking and became better people on their own. Plus he
knew some really great magic tricks. I wish I was around to see him
work a few doves. So if he got to hang out with liars, thieves, and
whores, why can’t I? Why can’t anybody for that matter? It’s ridiculous!
Should we all go home and pore over the gospel six days a week and get
our cultural fill from church one day out of the week? Piss on that.
Nobody’s getting in the way of my porn fueled, alcohol swilling, cigarette
smoking, glue sniffing, nc-17 rated existence, not even the big guy
upstairs. I’m sure he’s up there and he’s just gonna have to live with
it.
And what’s with the shakedown?
Tithing? What is that? Ten percent my ass. What did you do to earn ten
percent of my earnings and then make me feel guilty about rubbing one
out to Gilligan’s Island? I don’t pay people to make me feel bad unless
they’re wearing leather and sporting a buggy whip. Churches are non
profit organizations, yes, but they’re not getting a hold of my money.
Some people (like my mother and my late grandfather) gave more than
ten percent, so my family is covered. They picked up the tab. What do
churches really need other than a raised platform (for to look down
at everyone else) and a podium (to separate the minister from the sinners).
It’s a sham. That’s what bingo and lawn fetes and bake sales are for.
Work for my dollar.
And another thing about
the ‘holier than you’ club. Worshipping (fill in the deity) is not a
race to see who’s shit stinks the least and rubbing everyone else’s
nose in it. That’s rude and it’s elitist. When I went to Mennonite Church
I saw a lot of people who looked down from what they thought was a great
height at the rest of the world. Screw you. You’re no better than anyone
else, and you never will be. We’re all flawed, pathetic, weak, greedy,
gluttonous, lust-filled sacks of protoplasm. It’s called the human race,
you pompous asses. Those who contribute to charity should do so quietly
and those who commit good deeds should do them without expecting God
to drop a gold star decal from the skies. Some of us perform good deeds
all the time and leave them at that. Some of us treat the rest of the
world equally, and not just the clowns who show up on sundays with their
good Dockers on. Get off your enlightened ass and stop acting like morons.
Go out and do some good in the world instead of just fixing yourself
up. Do something! Organized religion has taken a nose dive into the
toilet. In the ‘60s everybody hopped onto the Buddhist movement or the
Transcendental Meditation trip. In the seventies it was rock and roll
Christianity with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor embarrassment.
When the eighties rolled around televangelists made a mint, misappropriated
it, and out-heathened their own congregations with their own money.
And in this, the 21st century, we have too many accounts of Catholic
priests molesting young boys to sweep under the rug. It sickens me.
I keep expecting to see Sam Kinison pop out of his grave screaming a
blue streak. Religion has caused a lot more harm than it has good. Throughout
history, there have been wars, crusades, taxes, more taxes, burnings,
beheadings, molestations, stonings, and genocides all because one group
believes that their opinion should be the only opinion. It’s too awful
to dwell on. I’m raving but there’s some truth here and there in what
I’ve experienced on my spiritual roller coaster ride. At the end of
the loop de loop, it’s dropped me off where I was in the first place.
Right here. You can appreciate the idea of a Creator without someone
else’s help. You can worship whoever you want to and better yourself
without doing it in front of the rest of the community. It’s not necessary.
Incessantly needling the unconverted is rude. I don’t knock door to
door and ask people if they want to attend my barn yard orgie club on
tuesdays, do I? If they show up, wonderful, and if they don’t, who cares.Let
everybody do their own thing and accept people. Is that so hard? I’m
not going to change and I’d never ask you to, either.
One of my oldest friends
is a minister. He’s a really nice guy but he’s got a serious problem.
Every couple of years we’ll grab lunch and he can’t have a pleasant
conversation without dropping Jesus on me. Don’t do that in public,
you loon! Every time he’ll whip out “How is your walk with the Lord?”
We’re doing just fine, thank you. Christ picked up some Nike cross trainers
and he’s keeping up with my strides a lot better than he was with those
foul, stank sandals he had. Why do they always have to go googly eyed
and say Lord every five seconds? If there’s a hell, I’m going there,
and I’ll get to meet all the cool people. I’ll even get to hang out
with all the boy raping popes, prostitute propositioning televangelists,
and alcoholic archbishops. Then they can teach me how to really party.
God bless.
