the church that stole my brother's brain

i was lookin' around on google in search of the church that stole my brother's brain. i was able to find their website and spent some time checking it out. at least i was able to clarify why my brother one day turned evangelical on me and made it his mission to save my soul from the depths of hell fire lest i commit my life to jesus christ. AMEN and HALLELUJAH

these folks are like any other radical church goin' christian types. it doesn't matter what kind of a life you live or the good service you provide to the world. you can be mother theresa and still not "get into heaven" (as though there's a physical door with a lock and a line. sigh. i just hope if there is a line it isn't controlled by the dmv folks). actually since these folks don't believe the catholic faith is a true religion but rather a false one, looks like mother t is swimmin' with the devil in their eyes....... back to my point. all ya gots to do to get to heaven? commit in your heart that jesus died for your sins and is your savior and bingo--you found yourself the key to the doors of heaven.

sigh. aint' life grand when you're an evangelical? no wonder pat robertson selected this faith. he can get away with stashing his money in illegal off-shore accounts instead of actually helping the folks his organization claims to. claim christ as your lord and you can be as evil as ya wants and still spend eternity with the big dude in the sky.

maybe i'll convert. hmmmm.......... i can do whatever i want as long as i commit to jesus and all i do will be forgiven. that means i don't have to be nice to anyone anymore. i can flip people off as i drive around town. if i don't like what my local government is doing, i can kick 'em all in the shins at the next council meeting. when my pesky neighbors chirps a "hello", i can spit on her driveway. imagine the fun i could have! i can be royal pain-in-the-ass-mischevious-waskly-wabbit-bitch-on-a-mission and still know i be gettin a first class ticket to heaven cause i has accepted jeeeeeeeeesus christ in my heart.

obviously i am being sarcastic. i'm sure most of these jesus followers really do care about being kind to people. i know my brother does. their hearts are in the right place. it's their brains that seem to have been kidnapped and robbed of any sort of logical and rational thought. it's puzzled me for the longest time why ANY THINKING person could truly believe that one who has lived a loving, giving life of service w/o subscribing to the christian religion has no chance of spending eternity in bliss and that one who has given nothing but believes in jesus will be swimming in it upon death. i asked my brother about this and his answer? "well that's what the bible says."

it so easy to let a book do all of the thinking for you.

it was hard, really hard to come to believe all of this stuff, my brother once told me.

maybe it's because you know in your heart it isn't true, i said.

oh no, it's true, he said.

how do you know? i asked.

because it's in the bible, he answered.

maybe the bible's wrong, i offered.

the bible is truth. the writers were guided by the holy spirit. how can it be wrong? he asked.

maybe what guided them was their own minds, i again offered.

no. it was the holy spirit, he said.

maybe they were smoking something and had a hallucination, i said.

he didn't find that funny.

ok fine, then prove it, i said.

it's in the bible, he said. then quoted me scripture.

sigh. it's a no-win situation. i did ask him why god is referred to as the father. he have a penis? i asked. of course not, my brother said. then why is he referred to as a male? because in the original texts of the bible, there were words used in reference to god that in the english language mean dad, father or daddy, he said.

while that part was very interesting to me, nonetheless, this genderizing of god bothered me, so i said maybe god was put in the context of the masculine because in those times, women were property and had no value in the world.

no. god is definitely of a masculine energy. we are to worship god as a father figure, he said.

well i have father issues, so in my mind, usually god is friend and guide. and lately, simply the sum of the whole.

while we had some intense and introspective conversations, i had finally had enough. he was beginning to become downright mean, saying my beliefs were bullshit and i was selfish for thinking for myself. i had to threaten to cut off contact with him for awhile unless he backed off. he finally came to a place where he respected my wishes to end the attempts at converting. i'm sure he still doubts my salvation, but i tell him i've been here before lots of times, i even have memory of some of these other lives, so i'm sure i'll go someplace where i am not destroyed. and i am solid on this one--it sure won't be where pat robertson is going............

n.