Wolf In Sheep Clothing…

The ones of you who have followed me for a while now know that I’m not a very religious person. I do believe but I believe in my way. So it might come as a surprise to you that I use this picture, this quote, this psalm to start my post. Maybe what I have to say from here on will shed some light on the reason why.

The reason why I don’t consider myself religious is because I don’t go to church. I don’t read the Bible (I have though, back in school, because we had to…). The reason is that I can simply not find a connection with the book and the people who preach (in most cases). Why? Because I feel everyone has an agenda. I was told that I don’t understand. That I have no clue, that I have not read it properly, that I don’t see the real message. I was told that I should finally see! That I should open my eyes and my heart and see…

Hhhmmm… keep preaching!

There are people who actually manage to preach in the name of God but only preach hate and intolerance. I’ve seen it. In the form of someone I know who considers himself a son of God, a priest. Someone who considers himself a true believer. Open my heart? To all this hate? Think again!

I’ve also seen it in the aftermath of Orlando:

“The tragedy is that more of them didn’t die,” Pastor Roger Jimenez told his Sacramento church Sunday morning, just hours after 49 people were killed in Orlando. “I’m kind of upset he didn’t finish the job — because these people are predators.”

Predators… THEY are all predators? Just because they are homosexual, transsexual, just different from “the norm”? But pastors like this one are better? All those pastors, priests, monks who raped little boys are of course not predators. They all did it in the name of God and of course only to make those poor boys feel loved, right? All the missionaries who raped women, slaughtered people, destroyed communities of course did it to make this world a better place. In the name of God, of course. Because people who do not believe in our God have to be put in place! And yet they all still think that they are so much better than all the other extremists are…

How can you pretend to be a real Christian, a true believer, a son of God (or whatever) and then be so hateful? How can you be intolerant and aggressive? How can you be against love?

How can you keep a straight face and pretend you follow God’s will if you preach hate and intolerance? How can you consider yourself a good person if you support aggression and physical harm?

Just because you defend your belief doesn’t mean it makes you a good person. Just because you use the Bible or any other “holy” book to refer to, doesn’t mean you can do as you please. Just because you twist and turn words in those so called “holy” books doesn’t mean your version is right. It does not automatically make you a good person!

Let’s be honest here: Every single one of those “holy” books was written a very long time ago. What made sense then does no longer make sense now (like not eating pork). What was put on paper was put on paper by people like you and me, handed over from generation to generation and adjusted over the time. It was written by people who most likely had an agenda too. Then adjusted by someone who had an agenda again. It’s then being read and interpreted by many others the way they wanted to interpret it. Bottom line is that it’s man made.

What I can simply not understand is how you can preach how good one God is and how good the message is in the one book going along with your God and then become so aggressive and destructive, so incredibly hateful.

I always thought religion is about doing good things. About being kind. About love. And then I look around. I listen to people who are deeply religious and I feel sick in my stomach. So much intolerance, where tolerance and love should be.

I’m glad I’m not one of them and I’m sure glad that I don’t have to spend time with them or having my kids exposed to them. So much hate. So much intolerance. So much aggression. All the stuff they preach about living a “good” live and then they don’t do it! Just because you pray every day doesn’t make you better, you know! How can you call yourself a kind person if you are homophobic? How can you preach “love your neighbor as you love yourself” if you detest gays, lesbians and everyone else who’s not straight? How can you preach “though shalt not murder” if you head out to buy a rifle (because you can thanks to the Second Amendment) even if you claim it’s only to protect your family because there is war (coming from someone living in the US…)? If you shoot the rifle you are most likely to kill someone…

Hypocritical, isn’t it?

And yet, look around! So many do it! So many preach what they do not live by!

But hey, what do I know! I probably totally misunderstand it.  I simply don’t get what the Bible or any other one of those kind of books is all about. Maybe all the books are just about control, hate, selfishness, intolerance and war. A simple tool to gather people under a false idea and then slowly form them into followers of your own ideas. But, ooops, here I go again, not knowing what I talk about…

To be fair, there are many others out there too. Many kind and loving people, who find their peace in God and interpret the Bible in a peaceful way. Those are the people I like to talk about God and religion with. Usually those are also not the ones who try to convert you. Because they tolerate. They tolerate the fact that some believe in their own way. They tolerate that love is love no matter if it is between a man and a woman or a man and a man, woman or a woman. All that matters is that people live a good life without doing harm to others.

To those I apologize if I seemed overly critical. I know what the Bible means to you. I understand how much it gives you. And I think in this case it’s a wonderful thing. In this case it’s the right way of being a good person…