Tue 1 March 2011 1:28 AM
Playing the Grace Card
An acquaintance at work told me about this great, new movie that came out recently called 'Grace Card'. The premise of the film (because, tediously, Christian cinema always has a moral) is that only by god's love and grace can humans overcome hatred and be united. The acquaintance was mentioning (as evidence to verify the premise) that at the free public screening she attended the previous night there were people there from all walks of life and all manner of ethnic backgrounds. Admittedly, this is true as far as it goes. Christianity can (sometimes), indeed, bring together people of disparate social or racial classes, but since Christianity, like most religions and ideologies, operates in a zone of selective reality this is, at best, a half-truth. Facts and science are referred to only insofar as they can be moulded or shoved into a context that supports the agenda and idiosyncrasies of the Christian's particular sect. The idea of the unifying power of god's love and forgiveness ignores the readily available facts that: a) it has so far failed utterly to work as a unifying force within Christianity as a whole and b) that most variants of Christianity, having some belief in heaven as distinct from hell are inherently divisive.
The "org chart" of Christian denominations since 200 AD is enough to test the faith of the most ardent believer - even if you ignore all the various offshoots and sects that the Catholic church almost completely expunged from the record of history during the early Dark Ages. If god's love is intended to unify us all, why can't it get Methodists and Baptists (or even Baptists and Baptists) to place nice with one another - let alone getting them to accept Unitarians, Catholics, or Mormons into the fold.
With the possible exception of Universalists and other minority percentages of other sects - there are very few Christian denominations that accept that god is actually a god of forgiveness. While Christ's sacrifice was sufficient to cleanse the entire world of their sins, it is only efficient for the elect. So, those who will not bow down at the throne (whether because of some in-born prejudice against god, because of ignorance of god, or (to quote Bertrand Russell) because there's "not enough evidence, god, not enough evidence") are statutorily denied from participating in the unifying power of god's love. And this is the point, that highlights another annoying hypocrisy of Christianity. Most sects blather on ad nauseum about Christ's condescension and god's forgiveness, all the while ignoring that with Christ's sacrifice, god did not have to forgive anyone of anything. In the real world, when you or I forgive someone, we're still out our $10 and still have a dead dog, but god, being the stiff-backed, cocksucking little twat that he is decided that if he going to have to put up with us worthless sinners in his heaven, then he's at least going to get his payback somehow. Making an innocent third-party pay the debt that I owe you, is not the definition of you forgiving me and it's only in a religion where the threat of torture is a gloss for love that it would be conceivable to try to define it as such.
The "org chart" of Christian denominations since 200 AD is enough to test the faith of the most ardent believer - even if you ignore all the various offshoots and sects that the Catholic church almost completely expunged from the record of history during the early Dark Ages. If god's love is intended to unify us all, why can't it get Methodists and Baptists (or even Baptists and Baptists) to place nice with one another - let alone getting them to accept Unitarians, Catholics, or Mormons into the fold.
With the possible exception of Universalists and other minority percentages of other sects - there are very few Christian denominations that accept that god is actually a god of forgiveness. While Christ's sacrifice was sufficient to cleanse the entire world of their sins, it is only efficient for the elect. So, those who will not bow down at the throne (whether because of some in-born prejudice against god, because of ignorance of god, or (to quote Bertrand Russell) because there's "not enough evidence, god, not enough evidence") are statutorily denied from participating in the unifying power of god's love. And this is the point, that highlights another annoying hypocrisy of Christianity. Most sects blather on ad nauseum about Christ's condescension and god's forgiveness, all the while ignoring that with Christ's sacrifice, god did not have to forgive anyone of anything. In the real world, when you or I forgive someone, we're still out our $10 and still have a dead dog, but god, being the stiff-backed, cocksucking little twat that he is decided that if he going to have to put up with us worthless sinners in his heaven, then he's at least going to get his payback somehow. Making an innocent third-party pay the debt that I owe you, is not the definition of you forgiving me and it's only in a religion where the threat of torture is a gloss for love that it would be conceivable to try to define it as such.
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