Memoir of an ex-Christian School student
author: shelbi glover | contributors
Credit: Flickr
Literally just change “God” to “Scientology” or “Satan” in this anecdote, and I’d have a Netflix documentary.
Hi, former Christian and brainwashed student of a private Christian School here. I grew up in the Bible Belt with four preachers in the family: two uncles, a cousin, and a grandfather, all of whom relentlessly shoved the Bible down everyone’s throat at every family event. For a long time, I let them. And, for a long time, I didn’t realize I was choking on it. I grew up in Sunday school. I knew all of the books of the Bible in order by the time I was 6, and recited the entire 23rd Psalm as a party trick. I was the Real Deal™ It wasn’t until I was seventeen that I realized it was seriously messed up.
The Christian Church I have come to know is a cult. I’ll start there. Arguably, any religion is a cult, but Christianity, particularly, has a crazy way of getting away with their corrupt, ritualistic shit like no one else. For example: when I was a newborn baby, unable to speak or defend myself, my parents “dedicated me to Jesus.” This is a ritual performed in which a baby is anointed, prayed over, and then given to god, theoretically. Literally just change “God” to “Scientology” or “Satan” in this anecdote, and I’d have a Netflix documentary.
Also, the offering of one’s entire life to some random omniscient being – an omniscient being who either isn’t all good or all powerful, one or the other – is just…sad. Like, I didn’t ask to be born. Why should I owe my existence to a being that put me here without my permission? Furthermore, what kind of narcissistic douche would ask that of us, anyways? The story of Abraham and Isaac as previously mentioned is still absolutely ridiculous. Like, why? Why would god need to test our dedication to him anyways? If he’s omniscient, doesn’t he already know the answer?
Quick answer: he does. God supposedly knows everything that has and was and will be but also never was/will be, and yet he still chooses to do mean stuff he already knows the outcome of (i.e., creation, generally).
Speaking of which, remember that time God wiped out the entire human race save for Noah? Or that time when he completely ruined Lot’s life just because Satan said “bet”? Or that time when he literally made Jesus die to prove how terrible we all are just for existing? Or the time he condoned killing gays? Yeah. God knew exactly how that was going to go down, and he did it anyways. Talk about a genocidal warlord.
Anyways, if you’re going by what the Bible describes, God isn’t and has never been all loving. He throws tantrums like a three year old and strikes people down for doing things he doesn’t like. He stamps his feet and requests sacrifices just because they make him feel loved. He demands that we find “redemption” in him for just being…people. And he outlaws having sex in any position other than missionary just because he enjoys being boring, apparently. If he exists at all, the Christian god is spiteful, vicious, and narcissistic.
As a matter of fact, God canonically killed 2.4 million people (not including the victims of Noah’s flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, etc.), while Satan killed forty-five and that’s the tea on that.
