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Christmas for Secularists
by dion Wednesday, Dec 22 2010, 9:12am
international / theology / commentary

It’s that time of year again when Christians celebrate the birth of their saviour on the traditional winter solstice pagan calendar. That aside for the moment, it is remarkable how little Christians know about their religion. A good example is the outrageous consumerism and waste that occurs at this time of year, which would undoubtedly be condemned by the Christian saviour himself. Consider Jesus’ loathing of money and wealth; there is no record of Christ even carrying money, on the occasions the Gospels refer to money to illustrate a point, Jesus requests that it be brought to him! Aversion to money seems to be a widespread 'oversight' that affects most Christians and Christian theologians these days, especially the gold-laden Roman Catholic Church and other major Christian groups – brazen HYPOCRITES the lot of them!

MANY references to Christ’s attitude to money and wealth are recorded in the Gospels, and there are no contradictions, Jesus DETESTS money and everything it stands for, now isn’t that interesting considering how we celebrate Xmas today! The Gospels are replete with many examples of Jesus’ loathing of money. In fact, he makes the point that it is almost impossible for a rich person to enter paradise – have the bible bashing morons in the USA got that point YET; probably not judging by their adherence to Christ’s rule of NON-VIOLENCE?

Christians, as EXEMPLIFIED by Christ, are obliged to respond to violence with NON-violence, in fact Christians are to turn the other cheek as an offering for it to be struck in the event they are attacked! That ‘little’ gem of Christian teaching is clearly LOST on the US military -- now responsible for over 5 million innocent civilian deaths since the Indo-Chinese war. To make matters worse the USAF prayed before each civilian killing carpet bombing mission, which slaughtered countless women, children and other innocents, as if pilots and crews were unaware of the consequences of indiscriminate bombing, give me a break!

I could go on and on with more examples of flagrant theological hypocrisy and transgressions of doctrine but I have made the point that Christians are the most loathsome religious hypocrites on the planet today; other religions, particularly Judaism and Islam, encourage adherents to kill those not of their faith if they present as a threat – I strenuously oppose violent theologies but at least followers of those clearly primitive and barbaric religions are spared the hypocrisy that has plagued Christians since the religion was founded.

I could not end this short piece without mentioning the fact that the Christian narrative revolves around a tradesman (carpenter) opposing the rich and corrupt ruling elites of his time and trying to reform the tightly stratified and inequitable, unfair society in which he lived. The New Testament is a great read if read as a social reformist narrative text, not some idiotic fantasy.

Anyway, it’s Christmas again and every hypocritical Christian on the planet can ruminate on what thorough failures they truly are!