At worship on Sunday, a man stood up and asked for forgiveness for his sins. I said we should murder him for his transgressions, but I was shouted down. Later, it was noted that someone was no longer in attendance, and it was suggested that we contact him and pray for him. I asked that, if he won’t come back to our religion, should we behead him and cut him to pieces. I was told, “No.”
“Well, what about kneecapping him?” I inquired. They answered that Jesus would be against that. When I asked why we care what Jesus thinks, they just said they’d pray for me and seemed to ignore me after that.
So I turned to my lovely and talented wife SarahK and asked, “What is this crazy religion you keep dragging me to? It has all these rules about not doing fun stuff because they’re ‘sins,’ but how do they expect to keep people in line without the threat of murder?”
“You shut up, goofy-goof, or I won’t make you cookies tonight,” SarahK answered.
I decided to get the bottom of this. Luckily, the teachings of Jesus – The Bible – were available for free on the internet, and no one was threatening to sue the sites for revealing the secrets of Christianity. Now, people were always getting right in the Jesus guy’s face, so I knew he’d eventually wreak vengeance on his enemies. But I searched for “strangle,” “behead,” and, “kick to the crotch” and couldn’t find Jesus using any violence to get people doing what he told them. Then, I finally stumbled upon a passage where Jesus flips out in a temple and starts knocking over tables. I’ve seen enough action movies to know this is the part where Jesus finally snaps, pulls out his dual .45s, and takes out everyone in need of a kill’n. I was wrong. He doesn’t kill anyone – not even a gut punch. Eventually, he gets killed without even putting up a fight. Seriously, Michael Bay couldn’t do a thing with this story.
So how did Christianity get started? I assumed next came Jesus’ followers avenging their leader’s death and getting people to follow them at spear point. Nope. They just hid from those trying to kill them while peacefully building up followers.
And this religion is still around two thousand years later?
I know; it’s weird. Most people are used to religion only working if death is threatened; why else would one want to follow a bunch of restrictive rules if there isn’t any danger that you’ll be cut to pieces? Apparently, Christianity uses this whole “salvation” thing to attract people – the carrot instead of the stick. So, if I get things right, I can sin and blaspheme all I want – swearing, doing drugs, and fornicating – and no one will murder me.
SarahK informed me that this was incorrect, as she would murder me, but she herself would be sinning. So, not only is murder in support of Christianity not encouraged, it itself is a sin. This wasn’t always well known, though, and some people long long ago murdered people for not being Christians. That causes problems today, as people will say, “While other religions murder people now, some people a hundred million years ago murdered people in the name of Christianity, so Christianity is just the same.”
And you might respond, “But that was very long ago and went against the principles of Christianity and thus is condemned.”
And the person will rebut, “Yes, but I’m a moral retard who equivocates everything. As far as I’m concerned, A is the same as Z.”
And there is no response to that.
So, not only is murder completely condemned by Christianity, the fact that anyone would murder in the name of Christ is considered harmful to the religion.
Despite these insane, murder-phobic beliefs, Christianity still seems to thrive. “Good living” and “salvation” apparently is enough to keep people faithful to a religion. Actually, it makes one wonder that, if “not being murdered” is the main selling point of your religion, maybe you should rethink the whole thing.
Frank J. is a syndicated columnist whose columns appear worldwide on IMAO.us and is a frequent contributor to IMAOPodcast.com. He is also the author of such books as “I’ll Murder You if You Don’t Buy This Book!” and “What Jesus Wouldn’t Do – The Frank J. Story”.
“I’ll Murder You if You Don’t But This Book”
But this book what?! Tell me! I don’t wanna be murdered!
I get it. You mean butt this book. Sorry, I have toilet paper for that. Besides, if I want to devalue a book I just burn it. This one looks good. Can I get a copy to destribute at Mosque?
Your “lovely and talented wife SarahK”? What other wives do you have? Does SarahK know about them (I’m guessing “not”). What will you do when she finds out? And you better hope she doesn’t notice that you propose to go “fornicating”, which by definition must involve someone other than one (or more) of your wives.
Good luck peddling this wacko no charge – no kill super-unsecret religion. I predict you’ll be wiped out by the first group of angry Quakers you meet.
If you want some cool action sequences in the Bible look in John 12, right after Jesus brings Lazarus back to life all the pharises plot to kill him to make Jesus’s miracle look like a fluke. They drop pianos in his path, start a stampeded down his street, arrange a deadly scorpian to be in his shower…all that kind of stuff…actually it’s not in there explicitly, but if you read between the lines, you got an awesome visual of Lazarus mobiling around his hometown of Bethany with the theme music of “Mission Impossible” and all these bady guy pharises in Ninja costumes chasing him around.
Makes a cool movie idea anyway…”Hunting Lazarus”
It ends on a bad note though when the same pharises failing miserably, say to each other, “What if we focus on Jesus instead?”
Very good! Best funny editorial I have read in quite some time …
Shimauma
Or “Lazarus Must Die!”
and then the sequel
“Lazarus Must Die! Again!”
I like the part where they come to arrest Jesus with an entire cohort of the Roman military and Jesus asks them who they are looking for. They say “Jesus of Nazareth!” and Jesus says “I AM he,” and then they ALL fall to the ground! Hehe…
And then Jesus says, “uh, who were you looking for again?”
Hehehe!
And they say (much more meekly this time), “Uh… Jesus of Nazareth?”
Haha. That’s awesome.
“Well, what about kneecapping him?”
I recall hearing somewhere that the Bible was somewhat vague on kneecaps.
//I recall hearing somewhere that the Bible was somewhat vague on kneecaps.//
They are vague on kneecaps, but King David and Soloman were both fond of mentioning “breasts” on several occasions. They were the poets and rock stars of their days, you know.
Bob-
You might be thinking about Firefly. The preacher is asked if the Bible has something to say about killing people. He replies that it does but is vague on the subject of kneecaps.
It’s always interesting to me how Christianity grows strongest in those places where it actually carries life-and-death consequences.
For an American to become a Christian is no big deal, but for someone in Afghanistan or China or North Korea or Algeria, the consequences are significant. As a result, people who take the step of faith there aren’t doing it on a whim.
They’re committing.
“or I won’t make you cookies tonight,” SarahK answered.”
We use secret code words for “it” too. 😉
//We use secret code words for “it” too//
Why do you need a secret code for baking? :looking around: WHAT? I don’t underst…oh, OH!! Okay…
I wish that I could attribute the quote, “Why would an almighty God need us to protect him by murdering unbelievers?” Can’t they get a real god that can defend himself?
Excellent post, Frank! Jesus told us that we would know them by their works…I’ve seen enough of Islam to know where that comes from… By the way, there is lot’s of cool action stuff in the Old Testement. Guys doing smoting stuff with the jaw bone of an ass and what for…
I, for one, don’t understand your sarcastic, loosely veigled attack on the peaceful – except for the majority of radical – Muslims. It’s very simple to understand this beautiful religion, really. 1) You must not drink alcohol or have loose sex with women to whom you are not married, as Mohommed HATES that. And, never ever hurt women or children. So, never, never do those things. However, 2) if you blow up women and children you drink rivers of wine and have sex with 50 virgins. There, now do you understand?