Monday Meme Madness - Violence for Jesus Edition

Welcome to another Monday Meme Madness, the day when we like to examine religious memes more closely for idiocy and underlying bad ideas. Today, I found some memes that imply violence as a solution.

Anyone who has read the Bible will know that there is quite a bit of violence. I mean, not long after the fall, we have fratricide, and some of the best and brightest preferred by Yahweh (ahem, David) chose murder as a way to gain an extra wife. Even the patriarch Abraham was prepared to kill his son to prove his submission to the deity that purportedly chosen him. That's not even touching on all the genocide the Israelites committed to establish their Promised Land.

And of course, anyone who has studied history knows about all the violence done in the name of religion from the crusades to the Inquisition to all the unrest in the Middle East and terrorism.

So really despite various individual Christians talking about how Christianity makes everyone better, and religion blank saying that their religion makes people act better, we can witness what is actually done by these people to achieve the ends their gods promote.

So, here we have meme #1: "Am I the only one around here who's still a decent Christian?"

Lookee here! We have proper punctuation and grammar and something that makes sense and can be called funny. I mean big points there. It's not every meme that is free of typos and weird punctuation.

What struck me is the implied message of the meme, that someone who is a "decent Christian" would prepare a gun for usage on the implied "indecent" Christians around him. Sure I get a chuckle at the meme's message, but if I think about it, Christianity should just make sense, people should just be moved by the lord and blah blah blah. I've been told Christianity makes people better - why should they need threatening?

And of course the person speaking thinks he's the decent Christian while all the other people, wheat they may or may not be doing, are all dogfuckers who need to bring their wayward asses back to the TRUE MESSAGE and relationship with their god. I mean, every Christian thinks he or she is the correct Christian, the one who understood his or her god's message correctly and everyone else has been listening to the devil.

Obviously this is a meme for the in-group. It really isn't for me, but still, the idea of violence to force people to agree to your interpretation of scripture is ridiculous.

Meme #2: Christian Dating; "U better not get in the way of me loving Jesus"

What is up with people in memes writing U instead of you like they're texting in 2005? It's two more letters, people! It's a meme and the letters don't cost money. Spell. The. Word. Out. Seriously. It doesn't make you look more with it or down with the kids' lingo or anything.

Besides that, I have so many questions about the implications of this meme. Presumably, the meme-maker is a Christian and would probably only date Christians, right? Or is the person dating non-Christians with the hope of converting them? It seems to me that whoever they would be dating, that person would also presumably "love Jesus," so is this problem wide spread? It seems like a non-problem.

I'm also wondering what kind of love we're talking here. I mean, is love a zero-sum game where you only have so much love, and the lion's share needs to go to Jesus? I mean, does loving your parents diminish the love you feel for this imagined being? In my experience, I have love of various kinds for different people, things, activities and pets. Have love for one doesn't diminish the love of the others. So again, this seems like a non-problem.

And the category is supposed to be Christian dating, where, I would guess, love for the person doesn't really come into it yet. Maybe the blossoming of love, but you might feel some lust or just affection or something. Does feeling these feelings get in the way of loving Jesus?  I mean, the Bible does say all this is sinful, but how else are you going to meet someone to marry and go procreate with? It seems to me you could simply say, "Hey, Jesus, I really like this guy, and yeah I'm feeling horny, but don't worry, I'm saving myself for marriage, so no worries." Wouldn't that work? Is Jesus so jealous he needs every scrap of your attention.

I never did like all the thought crime stuff in Christianity.

Finally, at least for this blog, why is violence the answer? Can't Jesus just inspire everyone to do the right thing? Shouldn't they be so filled with the Holy Spirit they are just pure and good and the devil can't touch them.

You're supposedly positing this omniscient, all-powerful deity and you still need violence to make sure things are done the way he likes. Doesn't seem all that convincing to me.

That's it for meme madness! Have a great week.