Friday, November 14, 2008

Why I Am Not a Christian - Reason # 471

I poppped open my computer this morning and what did I see?

"Priest: No communion for Obama supporters"

Hell of a headline, wouldn't you agree?

Apparently, "a South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him 'constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil.'"

"The Rev. Jay Scott Newman said in a letter distributed Sunday to parishioners at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville that they are putting their souls at risk if they take Holy Communion before doing penance for their vote."

You can read the article here.


I think my favorite part of the article is the declaration that supporting Barak Obama 'constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil'. Ummmm, ok. So does that mean, for example, that if I support the Catholic Church I've cooperated with intrinsic evil as well? I mean, there are those priests who molested little kids, right? That seems like pretty intrinsic evil to me. And there was that whole Inquisition thing, right? That wasn't exactly flowers and butterflies and rainbows. And then there was.... oh, wait, we're supposed to forgive the church for not being perfect and stick with it anyways. At least, that's what I've been told. But Barak Obama - eh, screw 'em. He's intrinsic evil. Nevermind the fact that my other viable option had no problem letting soldiers continue to die. Soldiers' lives apparently don't hold as much value as those of the unborn. Nevermind that my other viable option wanted to tax my medical insurance to somehow make my insurance better (yea, if you figure that one out, let me know).

Or maybe my favorite part was the part that says parishoners are 'putting their souls at risk if they take Holy Communion before doing penance for their vote.' What ever happened to that whole 'whoever believes and is baptized' spiel? So, if you do penance, you're still in. If you don't, and you take communion too early....... well, your soul will burn in the fiery flames of the inferno for all eternity. I'm sorry, but that sounds just plain stupid to me. If there is a god out there and he is so strung up on all of us performing some exact task in some exact order that we don't even have real directions on that he is going to send us into a fiery pit upon our deaths for screwing it up.... well, that's a pretty lame god, if you ask me.

I've lost unborn babies and I know that they are precious. I believe strongly that abortion is a sucky thing and I wish it didn't exist in our society. But you know what? I don't believe that Barak Obama is intrinsic evil. I also believe that we're fighting a war we don't have business being a part of anymore. I've lost classmates to battle and I've cried for them and dreamed about them and I've cursed our government for sending them away in the first place. I think we should get the hell out of there. But I don't believe that John McCain is intrinsic evil. I hate the way this priest is sending the message that if you don't agree with whatever stance he's taken, you don't agree with god and therefore you're risking your eternal soul. Maybe god is pissed on behalf of the soldiers we've lost, too. Who knows?

I'm not trying to make a political statement with this blog. Whoever you voted for - I'm cool with it, so long as you sat down and looked at the candidates and made a decision based on what you believe. For those who jumped up and voted for McCain for no other reason than that your church told you to, shame on you. For those of you who voted based on one single issue without looking at the rest of the picture, shame on you. And I mean that for both sides. If all you looked at was abortion, shame on you. If all you looked for was support of gay marriage, shame on you. Neither candidate was perfect. I couldn't get behind everything McCain said. I couldn't get behind everything Obama said. At this point in my life I've figured out that I'm never going to agree 100% with any certain political party, so I made a choice based on what I could agree with and what I felt would bring the best possible situation to our country. Maybe I made the right choice, maybe I made the wrong choice. But I thought it out and I made the best choice I could, and I'm okay with that.

What blows my mind is that there are Christians out there that aren't okay with that to the extent they would threaten me with eternal damnation if I didn't do things just their way. It reminds me of a quote from Douglas Coupland's Hey Nostradamus!:

"Jason's father, Reg, always said, 'Love what God loves and hate
what God hates,' but more often than not I had the impression that he really
meant, 'Love what Reg loves and hate what Reg hates.' "

Quite apropo, don't you think?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

So you can't be a Christian because some Catholic says an idiotic thing and is a prick. I personally can't stand how many christians run around with their nose in the air but that does not stop my belief and work towards understanding God. But if it makes you feel better to not tie yourself into the name it is understandable. Just don't blame God for people's stupidity, we are morons all on our own.

Anonymous said...

Clearly, I was a hardcore Christian until I read that article on the internet - then I immediately gave up my faith on account of this priest. Thanks for clearing this up for any of my readers who may have mistakenly thought I was using sarcasm, exaggeration, or using one event to summarize a large number of (unfortunately) similar experiences I've had in the church.

*sigh*

Which leads me to....
Why I Am Not A Christian, reasons:

#156 - Assumptions about what my faith (or lack thereof) should look like without knowing my story.

#234 - God getting the 'credit' for the good stuff but not the 'blame' for the bad stuff.

Anonymous said...

Don't know your life, know what you wrote. Sorry if I misunderstood what you were trying to say. I would never say I am the sharpest spoon on the prairie. The initial thought I had was me having to defend myself from people who think that because I am a Christian I can be lumped in with all crusades of the time and can't think for myself. In my opinion God doesn't get blamed enough for the bad stuff, he is the one who created us and gave us the freedom to be bad, good, or just overly saturated piece of toast I ate this morning.

"sigh!"

Hell, I probally misunderstood the comment too.

Enjoy your musings though

AND YOU MUST HAVE ALOT OF LONG LISTINGS #471

Anonymous said...

And after reading some more of your stuff I would not blame him for your stuff but not you either, I would just say that hey shit happens and life is life and unfortunatley have to deal with the cards dealt to us. You know what sucks life, God or the devil is an excuse. Life is life and you can just move forward and do what you do.

I sat and read all your postings and this is what I say. You have dated some weird guys, I like butter but what the FUCK and I like big breast and just take a shower to keep my ass clean with washing as opposed to being offended by big breast but just to be fair I won't comment to you about what you write anymore. I will just bitch to everyone else I know and keep you out of it. I don't want to step on you about this and should be easier for you since you are a writer.

Anonymous said...

Who are you?

Triana said...

Wow. Very, ummmm... Interesting..? Way to go H, you truly do attract all the, ahem, 'fun' people. How do you do it? Oh wait, I've figured it out on my own.

Anonymous said...

From crazy comment guy
My name is Matt and I live Georgia, I apologize. 1 1/2years clean and I fell off hard. It wasn't good. I have enjoyed your blog for awhile with a few others and you just got part of something I am not proud of. Again I apologize about this.

Anonymous said...

Hello, Matt from Georgia! Hey, we all have a bad day once in awhile. I hope things start looking up.