Thursday, January 31, 2008

Jeebus is sick of your prayers.

Yep, my boss is into Jeebus.
She uses the company gear and staff to print off the weekly church bulletin.
Which means we get to read it... And oh what fun it is.

Now a brief bit of background.
I'm not into Jeebus.
I'm not into someone else instead, I don't know that there is an omniscient presence that sees over us and I don't know if I believe in any kind of theism.
At the moment, I'm pretty happy in making my own decisions on all things existential and I don't need a god or a text to define my morals, thank you very much. I'd say my self-defined set of values and morals are pretty good. I'm not a philanderer, I may be slightly greedy, I do get jealous from time to time, but I'm not harming anyone. I think Buddhism would be the closest an organised religion would come to representing my interests. Although I'm probably a tad too militant to be a Buddhist.
Come to think of it, science is the best option when it comes to explaining my world.
And I'm happy for you to believe in whatever it is you choose to, just don't try to recruit me for any of your nonsense.
Anyways...
So the boss uses work for Jeebus tasks.
And whilst folding the Jeebus pamphlets, we have a read of what's happening in the church.

Friday: Pray that Mr Johansson will find help with his current difficulties.
Nice one. Single out the bankrupt guy for prayers. I'm sure that's what he needs because his overdraft mainly consists of hopes and dreams, so surely enough prayers should be worth something, right? That makes the church like a giant ATM. Cha-ching!

Saturday: Pray that the Youth Group has more people return to hear about the Lord's word.
Wait, what? You're praying for more people to come and learn how to pray? This is getting a bit too 'meta' for me. And tell your damn godsquad teens to leave me alone. I don't want your brochure and your hymns are old and shitty.

Sunday: May we pray that Pastor O'Brady's sermon reaches out to those who need it the most.
Again with the praying about praying. Since when did prayers become so self serving? Oh what? Always? Ok... Amen!

Monday: Pray that the children have enjoy themselves at playgroup and that The Lord may reach out to all of them.
Ok, that's a no no. No touching the children. Even if you are a deity. Also, don't kids do this anyways? I didn't go to church playgroup, but by hell did I have some fun in the heathen sandpits.

Tuesday: Let us pray that Sanyan Patang's chemotherapy is effective and that his family are looked over during this testing time.
Sounds like Mr Patang's been a-sinning! Ok, that's just poor taste, but seriously praying for science? Isn't that like the old cliche of fucking for virginity? Or eating for famine? Or fighting for peace? Granted it's nice they're supporting the family during a rough time, but praying for the chemotherapy to be effective? I imagine the people of the church stood around Mr Patang's hospital bed, holding their hands over him going "Wow-wow-wow-wow-wow-wow"
all psychic like.
You could call it Pray-diotherapy if you like. But I don't think it would help...
Maybe I'm just a pessimist.

And so the list of prayer targets went on.
This got me thinking that isn't it a bit selfish for this people to be praying over such minor things.?
And if you were Jeebus, or God or whichever one it is, wouldn't you be a bit pissed with people telling you about this stuff all the time.
It's be like being in high school again and having your mum constantly asking "Have you done your homework yet?"
No, but I'm about to, give me a chance dammit.
Likewise, Jeebus probably WAS going to help out Mr Patang, but you lot have been so damn annoying, asking him to do things every five minutes that Jeebus has cracked it and decided Mr Patang can sort himself out.
This goes for all of the suggested prayers. Praying for the children to enjoy playgroup? If I was Jeebus, I'd be like "Seriously you guys, fuck off. The kids can enjoy things themselves just fine. What you want me to do? Apparate or some shit? Is that what you want? You want me to apparate and do some baloon animals or something? Sheesh. Go find some real conundrums, ass-hats."

"Did you want a balloon animal or not? Now what's wrong? Oh your scalp is burning? Well go tell mummy to stop praying cos she's PISSING OF JESUS!!! God I hate kids... Hey, you there! What the fuck are those flowers for? Are they dandelions? God I hate dandelions..."

I do find the whole prayer thing to be very self-centred. I mean, shit, you want something? Why not work for it like everyone else. Stop being a slack ass and do the hard yards. Stop asking for money to come your way. Don't pray that life will get easier. No one likes a pussy. Especially one that spends their time praying that Jeebus will make everyone stop calling them Monobrow Mary. Here's a tip. If you want a deity that will fix that problem, screw Jeebus, go get a Venus and shave your damn eyebrow lady.

I think if everyone who spent time praying did something actually worthwhile instead, a shitload more good things would get done. Think about that next time you're kneeling in front of your bed. Instead of sitting there, hands clasped asking god to help you pass your mid semester exams, why don't you get out a fucking text book and do some actual reading.

If I never post again, know that God came under the cover of darkness and stole my soul away.

So today was a day of rage*, blaspheme and generally unwholesome outbursts. Probably not to be repeated, so if I've offended you**, do come back cos it's likely my other posts won't be so offensive. Probably.

* Regarding today's ...errr... outburst. I realised when i got home tonight that I hadn't eaten any lunch. And when I don't eat, I get super grumpy.
So if I had eaten lunch, I probably wouldn't have had such a tantrum this afternoon.
Rage and Biscuits is a bit of a misnomer now I think about it. If I have biscuits or any food for that matter, I don't get grumpy/rage-y... Maybe I should call this Rage or Biscuits.
Meh...

**This post is all in jest, so please God, don't let anyone be offended by it. Kthxbai.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

If by chance you and I are wrong about this god person, I don't want him bothering his head about such trivial matters as Mr Johansson's bankruptcy. It would be typical of senior management to interfere in daily running of stuffs.

No, god should be there to set policy only.

Come Back Brighter said...

Rage or biscuits -- a bit like cake or death, perhaps?

I expect Mr Patang is probably trying quite hard though, so while I'm otherwise inclined to agree, I think the focused power of positive thinking on his behalf could be a good thing...

non-Blondie said...

I'm with Andrew on this one - what if there is a god but they're run off their feet with everyones piddling wishes, and don't have time to get around to the world peace and ending famine & disease and making people nice and stuff?

Girl Friday said...

Actually I am with fever dog. In general I think you are spot on and I almost weed myself with laughter, but Mr whositswhatsit probably is doing the best he can. Never hurts to have a little mental energy thrown your way, without touching children of course. Fucking pedo's....

jiminycricket said...

All good points peeps.
Now read on as I'll respond en masse and individually. This will probably seem contradictory, but it makes sense to me and that's what matters.

Andrew: I agree. Whilst Mr Johansson is struggling with his debt, why doesn't everyone at the church cook him some dinners or something that would really help alleviate the situation.

FD: I had to look Cake or Death up...turns out it's an Eddie Izzard thing. I can't compete with that!
And yes, i totally agree that concentrated support and positiveness around someone is
a hugely powerful thing and I would never criticise that. But i personally think it's got nothing to do with god and is more to do with something much more human... Anyways, that's just this little heathen's view.

Girlfriend: Fo Sho! We should write a letter to god and demand that he take a much more 'upstream approach' to things. ie. Make poverty history, and that cuts about 3 gazillion individual prayers that he'd have to deal with otherwise.

Jeebus, you should totally be writing this down.

Girl Friday: I'm glad you didn't actually wee yourself. And I agree with feverdog too. If anyone I knew was unwell, I'd be channeling super positive thoughts. And if it's religion that prompts people to do this for someone, then more power to them.

I guess there are massive parallels between atheists/agnostics/etc and religious people. They do the same things a lot of the time, it's just that they call these things by different names.

Mind you, I do get a bit carried away sometimes and tend to spiral down the bad taste path, so please don't think I have any real disdain for the goodwill shown towards Mr Patang.
Essentially, the example of Mr Johansson and Mr Patang are, in my eyes, the good side of religion that I can get behind in some way.
Unfortunately there's a whole other side to it which I abhor...


Anyways, on a lighter note, it's Friday bitches!

Anonymous said...

Hi Dude, thanks for the laffs.

I'm not a great believer in prayer, either. Simply because crikey, every man and his dog is praying for something somehow somewhere, often contradictory prayers are coming in to Himself left, right and centre... So, do you really think praying for something unimportant as saving someone from bankruptcy is going to cut the mustard?

I just wouldn't bother.

Kae

Come Back Brighter said...

Not for a moment would I suggest that prayer 'worked' because of god or jeebus -- I just wanted to clarify my earlier statement in case it seemed like I was a bible waving loon :)

jiminycricket said...

Kae: I agree. I'm really not sure it's worth praying for specific things in isolation. I don't think it would cut the mustard.

FD: Pipe down, you bible waving loon! I'm sick of your religious diatribe! hehe.. It's cool man, I wasn't thinking that at all.