The concept that "God Is Love" is older than Christianity.

Here's an uncomfortable logic problem.

Either Jesus was the son of god, or he was...kindof an asshole.

Let that sit for a minute. It's not that complicated, but just let it sit. You've been trained not to think about it this way, but think about it. Let's not go into questions of whether or not a man by that name even existed, whether he was wise or foolish, or whether his followers have done more good or evil. Let's just look at it in the way that one looks at other statements.

If I, Daniel, say that I am God...And it should somehow come to light, that I am probably not God...Then that makes me one of two things:
1) A liar.
2) Crazy.

Or, I suppose, a crazy liar. Now if Jesus was the son of God, as many say, his plan is still incubating. It's all in the works. He's still around and coming back any day now to correct the ills of man, lend clarity to our confusion and whathaveyou. If, however, he was just some dude who thought he was the messiah as many did and spoke the truth as he saw it and not the ultimate truth, then his statement is no different from mine a few lines up. The beds of mental institutions are filled with people claiming to be God. No one listens to them.

Now, obviously, whether the bible is folklore is a whole separate issue. And whether we should let the rules of folklore govern our lives is another issue still. Sure, there was no Internet back then. No running water, no central air, and no dishwasher either, but certainly some truths are universal, right? If we are saying that Jesus really said, "We are all sons of God," then we are preaching a common love for our fellow humans. We are teaching that each person is empowered and must make the best decision possible for himself and others. We are also teaching that an invisible being created us, which, with sufficient poetic license, can mean almost anything at all.

None of this, of course, is what they are teaching in the churches I've been in. They are teaching that we are essentially wretched and corrupted creations by a perfect being, and that we are in desperate need of saving. Nevermind the question as to why a perfect being would accidentally create less perfect ones. And I'm not going to argue about how disempowering these religious precepts are for reasons described in Orrin Onken's classic internet article, The Seven Deadly Arguments.

If one wants to argue that the story of Jesus says, "We must all carry the sins of those around us," or "We must each be responsible for saving ourselves as well as each other," then what we are preaching is common sense. It is still the same when one considers social responsibility in the modern day. It means: don't waste energy, don't kill innocents, don't lie, don't steal, don't do anything to anyone else that you wouldn't want done to you. Again, except for the golden rule, most of this is common sense. It arises from accepting that the world doesn't revolve around me or you or our little beliefs and observations, but around something bigger that can be objectively observed.

If I say that time begins when I wake up, it describes very well what my day feels like. It does not offer a fair description of what other people experience when I wake up. They experience nothing. So if I said that time is essentially a measure of movement relative to me, most people would give me the finger. Unlike the sun, I don't have a gravitational pull. If I could offer some proof that mine is somehow different from the normal human gravitational pull, then someone might listen...but I can't.

Neither can Jesus. Neither can Moses. Neither can the Dali Lama or the Buddha. Neither can Muhammad. Neither can Santa or the tooth fairy. Men are just men. Magic is just something we make up so kids stop asking us questions we can't, or don't want to, answer. Most morality is based on little more than simple logic.

Consider this: if you were becoming involved in a cult, would you want your friends to let you get sucked into their dogma? What if you were becoming an alcoholic? What if you were becoming a fundamentalist Christian or Muslim (the type that reads everything literally)? What exactly is the difference?

I've grown tired of people's politically correct statements about religion when they're dealing with fundamentalists in this country. Fundamentalism is every bit as much of a cult as Scientology, perhaps more. In the film, Jesus Camp, the preacher states quite clearly: "I want to see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam. I wanna see them as radically laying down their lives for the Gospel as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine and all those different places..." In other words, she thinks Jesus wants TWICE the hatred, instead of none. So why have we become such wusses in our public discourse with these people?

Yes, everyone has first amendment rights. That is a good thing. But separation of church and state exists to protect everyone's rights, and the next time someone tells you that we live in a Christian country and we ought to teach Christian concepts in school, I want you to look them in the eye and say:

"For all I know, Jesus was most likely an asshole."

When they get all pissy, you just explain the basic logic of it and let it go at that. If they fight you, tell them it takes more faith to accept that we don't know everything than to pretend that we do. Tell them that fear and faith are most certainly not the same thing. Tell them that they are free to believe anything they want so long as they keep it out of the schools and the courts, but also tell them that you love them and that you don't need a codebook to know why that's the right thing to do.

Tell them that you're God (if you can bear to). Or tell them about me, a crazy liar poet blogger singer nerd guy with hair like Jesus who once called himself God just to make a point and then exclaimed that time was really a measure of movement relative to him. They'll probably call me a gigantic asshole, and, right about then, you can look back in their eyes and say, "Exactly...just like Jesus."

All the good poets are crazy assholes. That doesn't mean they're always right or always wrong, just that they're not going to believe the norm just because it's easier. Afterall, it's often what you can't say that needs examining. You're free to believe that nothing under the sun is new, but I believe that was uttered when we thought the sun revolved around us. Like many of the things we accepted then and like many things we accept now, it is probably wrong.

I'm not trying to say you should be one of those people who bashes religious folks either. It's terribly trendy now, and it wears thin pretty quick. Consider Einstein's statement, "The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer." I'm not preaching hate. I'm suggesting honesty.

Since most of these things cannot be proven or disproven, it doesn't do much good to pretend you know all the answers. This applies whether you are saying you know that there's a God and this is what he said, or that there's no God and all of what you see is the result of chemical chance, or whatever it is that you're inclined to believe. It takes a bigger person with bigger faith to admit to not knowing everything rather than pretending otherwise. One does the world a great service to find what works for oneself without needing to try to convert everyone else to that position.

The biggest worldly problem with religion arises from many organized groups' belief that everyone must come to worship in the same way. This needs to be resisted with every last ounce of fight humanity has. The logic behind this religious tenet is solid: in essence, there can only be one (objective) truth. In practice, however, even in science where we can test and observe results, our conclusions are often later found to be mistaken. We are learning new things all the time. We likely always will be. We need to get used to that.

Besides, religion often deals with matters that will always be subject to personal opinion (such as what to eat), and matters like these would become meaningless if individuals couldn't choose for themselves. Other than making life boring, it would serve no purpose for us to all agree about all the dietary choices in our personal lives. Faith is the same way.

It's fine that organized religion is a part of the community. It's fine for it to be a guide, just as it's fine for people to disagree. What is not fine is for religion to be aggressively spread (as it has been for thousands of years and over millions of dead bodies). Likewise, it's not fine for faith to be aggressively suppressed as that too has caused the loss of millions of innocent lives.

If one is going to argue The Seven Deadly Arguments (I do), one should at least adhere to the bill of rights. Our country was established with laws that mandate that we keep religion out of the government. This is not a Christian country and it never was. It is a country in which everyone is free to be an asshole unless it would infringe upon another's right to be an asshole. If you can't see that, you're a bigger asshole than I am.

You have no right to be such a gigantic asshole that it infringes upon another's right to be an asshole.

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