The Opinion "Jesus died for your sins" has itself died, having been gutted with a kitchen knife by professional language assassin Sarah Palin. The Opinion was not quite 1,700 years of age.
The Opinion had enjoyed a very active social life for centuries as it reminded people who were too poor to be wealthy that they had better behave or 1. they would hurt Jesus' feelings 2. they would piss off the old man and be burned in a lake of everlasting fire 3. be diddled by a Catholic priest 4. they might get just a bit too big for their britches and face a comeuppance of biblical proportions. The all-pervading canopy of guilt and suffering that the gruesome sacrifice entailed often sufficed in making lives that already sucked just a little bit more depressing, just a little bit more unworthy, hollow and removed--one can never be Jesus, and one can never ease the suffering of God--but, other than that have a nice life and try the lobster.
In lieu of flowers the family of the deceased Opinion suggest that perhaps the young men and women who have died and continue to die in combat in our various wars, currently throughout the Arab lands, are the ones dying for our sins. Others who die for our sins are the children of the Followers of Christ, children who die for lack of medical care and a surfeit of biblical literalism--children of a god who can't always be expected to help out. Every day we put a variety of people up on a cross to die, so that we won't have to sell our SUVs or turn down the AC in summer or confront the future as something that is living now. Every day we participate in this waking dream, and do what we do, for good or ill.
Truly, people die every day in this world, often simply for the sin of having been alive, and sometimes this quid pro quo seems a fair bargain, while other times it plays out as a heartbreaking tragedy--so it goes.
Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born.
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
William Blake
Be well, be wild, love dearly, sing from your heart, and steer clear of Raptor Jesus. I fear He loves you not.
++++
Comments