WWJD? Sue!

A papal visit always inspires me to think of religion. Religion and really bad hats. If you're a Catholic, a papal visit is like a ticker tape parade for Neil Armstrong; cool guy but other than being on the moon what does he have to do with me?. And I can't imagine the Jews aren't thinking "gee, German and Catholic, this can't end well". If you're gay it's "nice hat but lose the attitude".

I was raised a Catholic and endured 12 years of Catholic school for which I am eternally grateful to my now gratefully dead parents because only those 12 years could have produced such a faithfully unwaivering atheist.

That having been said I have absolutely no beef with Jesus Christ on any personal level. You see Jesus is not my problem. My issue, which this papal visit makes most abundantly clear, is that it took longer for the Romans to un-cross Christ that it did for his followers to utterly miss the point and ruin the message.

The message itself is practically flawless in its simple truth: love one another as I have loved you; do unto others as you would have done unto you. Bang! Dead simple. No culinary rules, eat what you want. No need to meditate on a mountaintop to commune with your maker for your maker lives in the faces and hearts of all your grubby fellow men. Love them and you love me says our hippy-dippy savior. And not five minutes later the disciples are divvying up shares in Jesus Inc. and criticizing the Romans for drawing lots for his clothes. Some balls.

If I were Christ's counsel what would I advise he do? Sue. Sue the balls off of any and every loser manipulator who hides behind your trademark to promote his own agenda. Sue the churches for plagiarism, perjury, libel, and fraud. Sue the priests and the clergy for defrauding his stock holders and holding cheap the currency of his message. Sue for defamation of character for the horrors committed in his name. Sue for alienation of affection for every believer they ever tortured into hating him.

So what ax does an atheist have to grind with a church he or she has utterly abandoned? Only this-that said church, and all churches it seems, have not only so completely missed the point but worse yet, have promoted an antithetical dogma in his name that affects those who do want to play along. And while I am an atheist, I will fight to the death for your right to believe in that gobbledygook but I can't stand by and watch a good idea go so horribly off kilter and so many innocents hurt in the process.

Would Christ have ostracized gays? He ran with 12 unmarried dudes. Do the math.
Would he have stood in judgment of people who use contraceptives? He hung with a hooker, remember? How on earth did this simple and beautiful and perfect philosophy get so perverted? And don't think I'm only knocking the home team. While Catholicism may have it wrong, sure as you're breathing, the Protestants got it wrong-er. They took out the dancing, the sex and the wine. Two out of the three the Bible tells us Jesus partook in. The third got left on the cutting room floor at Nicea but you get the point. Good grief!

The New Testament bible is like a transcript of a bad game of "telephone". It starts out with Jesus saying "love your neighbor" and ends with the acid trip of Revelations and the apostles screaming "stone everybody". What the hell?

This particular pontiff is a real storm trooper when it comes to catechism (sorry, couldn't help it) allowing for no variations or exceptions to church rules. It's like trying to enforce a dress code on the deck of the Titanic. Dude, folks are leaving in droves, now is not the time to make staying more un-doable.

Hundreds of gay Catholics marched on the UN to raise awareness of how their church has abandoned them. Hey, wasn't the whole point to love your fellow man? Meanwhile the church that speaks of preserving life condemns condoms that would prevent the spread of AIDS thus causing millions of unnecessary deaths. Is it me, seriously?

I am an atheist and therefore find no need for faith in my life. Not religious Voo Doo-ey, water into wine, magic show faith. I have faith in my fellow man. That every single beautiful boy out in front of the UN yesterday is as deserving of love and respect as Christ himself. Because that is what Christ himself said. I have faith that we are the Gods and are capable of Godlike behavior. I've seen it and I feel it and if you don't believe me consider this: it took 19 men to kill over 3000 on 9/11 but 323 to save 60,000 in New York alone. The law of averages argues for the intrinsic decency of men's souls which churches would crush, but the word of Christ exalted.

Believe if you wish and don't if you don't. Frankly I couldn't care less. But if you are going to believe then for god(whom I don't believe in) sake at least believe it right. Believe in the actual message and not the translation. The bible says that Christ was warned he'd be betrayed by one of his own for pieces of silver. They neglected to tell him the real betrayal would be post mortem. The pieces of silver? Ask who is the largest landowner in New York City (although NYU may have beat them on this one). A papal visit isn't a mission of faith, it's a real estate appraisal.

So this weekend I think I'm sitting out Pope-a-Palooza '08 and instead sending contributions to GMHC, Planned Parenthood, and NOW. And with every check, I the atheist, am living the true word of Christ. Ain't that something?