I just settled into my facebook newsfeed when I saw this:
If you feel that you can brag about the limitless love your omnipotent being of choice has for you why do you say you fail him daily? What kind of message is this?!?!
I can never love god enough but he loves me anyway. Ok, that’s not too terrible. It’s in line with Christianity’s “believe and all will be absolved” message. But there always has to be a martyr…”I fail him daily”. That seems to imply that there’s a benchmark set somewhere and you will never reach it. But don’t worry, god loves your failing ass anyway.
I can see why people find “inspiration” in this. Note that this meme is by “Happy Heart Daily Inspiration” but the believer on the dock doesn’t look very happy. It looks to me like she’s sitting around thinking, “God, I really suck! You love me anyway, but I always seem to fail you.”
I don’t find a passive aggressive deity very comforting. If he’s not telling his followers that they’re not loving him enough then who is? Maybe his ministers? Well, they are only human…and that’s my problem with this religion. It’s something that very human men have pieced together for centuries.
I will never understand why women want to be Christians. Is there scripture that openly includes women? That celebrates women? I’ll be really impressed if you can show me Old Testament scripture that praises women (besides Song of Solomon).
I can take the message in that photo and worm out the teeny, tiny, miniscule seed of self-acceptance that’s buried in it. But how many people (especially women) are going to do that?
Do Christians look at that meme and think, “I am exactly who I am supposed to be right now. I might not be happy with myself at this moment, but I accept myself anyway. The fact that God loves me as I am now also helps me feel that I’m worthwhile.”?
Or do they look at it and think, “I can never love God enough, but he loves me anyway.”?
I personally don’t find that very self-empowering. But there’s the problem; Christianity isn’t really about self-empowerment is it? It’s about following a book, following a deity (or 2), following a church, following a minister…following.
I never thought of myself as a leader, but I’ve always known I’m not much of a follower. I guess that’s why Christianity never struck a chord with me, even as a kid. I tried really hard many times because I find religion and belief systems fascinating. Well, I find a lot of them interesting, just not Christianity.
I’m a woman and women carry fertilized life and give birth. It only makes sense that if there is a supreme being who created everything she’d be a woman. I like praying to a woman. I find it very hard to believe that an omnipotent being is concerned with whether or not we show up at church every week, dance, drink alcohol, take drugs, have sex, get rich or stay poor.
I do believe that an omnipotent being would care that we do our best to not harm the world around us. That includes our fellow beings. But I have a hard time believing in one being ruling over everything. I think the universe is far too complex for such a blatantly human notion.
I could be wrong. I do my best to be ethical. I’m always evaluating which values are mine and which are society’s…and if they’re society’s are they mine? Are my values harmful to anyone? I believe more in energy I suppose…like any healthy belief system (or Firefox) my beliefs are constantly updating.
I was going to end with the phrase, “God helps those who help themselves” but that’s actually of Greek origin, pre-Christian. I’ve seen more evidence of that than the grace that God bestows on his believers. But that’s me! In the end, spirituality is deeply personal. Believe what makes you happy!















