Wednesday, September 26, 2007

On Jesus and Being a Dick.

A few weeks ago I had heard some story about how fellow Christians were doing asshole-ish things to not-Christians and I had the idea of writing a post that would boil down the Golden Rule and the teachings of Jesus (the love thy neighbour Jesus not the tipping tables in the temple Jesus) down to the catchy phrase of, "Don't be an Asshole." I figured it would be much easier to remember than the, "Do onto others as you would have them do onto you," thing for those prone to letting their little inner assholes win the day.

Never wrote the post. Now I can't. I got scooped by John Scalzi (via I am a Christian Too). However he scooped me a good month before I even thought of writing the post so it's okay.

John wrote:

A Hindu chaplain was called to offer a prayer at the US Senate yesterday; the response of some Christian nutbags was to slip in and disrupt the prayer because the Hindu chaplain wasn't giving his shoutout to Jesus. They were trundled out, the prayer was given, and yet, somehow, the Republic did not fall. I think we can all thank Vishnu for that.

....

I think it's fair to remind them of a number of things:

1. Whatever the rationale, they're being dicks.

2. At no point in the Bible does Jesus say "be a dick in My name."

3. Lots of other Christians seem to get through life without feeling called upon to be a dick in the service of Christ.

4. Indeed, when many of these Christians discover to their dismay that they've been a dick about something, they will frequently fall to their knees and say, "Forgive me, Lord, for I have been a total dick."

5. And He does.

6. That's a hint.


He did it better than I would have anyway.

The point still stands though.

Don't be an Asshole or a Dick.



Of course you know I posted this just so I could work Jesus, asshole and dick into the same post.

I have to go pray now.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah! Go pray for the poor souls who will now stumble upon your blog based on sordid search terms! LOL!

kitten said...

I can't understand why some people call their self christians and they don't even act like it.

Dawn said...

I think what qualifies as 'acting christian' isn't universal.

It's a pretty diverse faith. Too bad everybody didn't just do it that way I do it! :)

Lisa said...

As an atheist, I certainly am annoyed seeing people being assholes and justifying it with their christianity. Why does religion have to enter in to it? Why does one need the threat of damnation to treat their fellow human being with compassion? I do know people who are very kind, moral people who live so without the aid of supernatural dribble.Its not that hard.

Dawn said...

Religion enters it for me simply because I choose to let it. It's been a help for me but that's just me.

I've known too many atheists to think you can't be a good person without religion and too many christians to think religion is some kind of guarantee of goodness.

However, if you going to call youself a christian and do things in the name of christianity, I think you better damn well keep the, "Don't be a Dick," motto in mind. :)