by DarkSyde
DailyKos, Apr 15, 2006
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/15/6556/58209

Shared in a post made by John Manning.

If I were Christian, I'd have to guess that Christ doesn't care what the heck you call yourself, Republican, Democrat, Boy Scout, Muslim, Hindu or even atheist; it's your deeds that count, your actions that matter, and your character that defines you. Good people are identified as good by the good deeds they do, while evil people are identified by doing evil deeds. I'd point out clearly that arguing for the cult like worship of any human being, in any nation, as an inerrant God like leader, praising warfare or terrorism, the repression and bombing of innocent civilians, arguing that torture or murder or genocide is a good thing, and defending the wealthy and powerful, is completely at odds with what Christ clearly taught.

If I was a Christian I'd thank God for including me in this Cosmos in all its resplendent majesty. I'd study every branch of science I could and hunger for more every day. I'd be teaching biology and chemistry and astronomy in Sunday Schools along side Biblical verse to eager young Christian children who would learn reverence for those fields of knowledge. I would note the truth that molecular biology has revealed: We are all one family, every man a brother, all women sisters, and each of us is our brother's keeper. They would "ohhh" and "ahh" at the pictures of God's cosmos from powerful telescopes. They would be fascinated with God's intricacies found speck of blood under the microscope. They would be inspired assembling a model of life's DNA double helix, or an atom. And they would look in fascination at the image of Creation itself borne across an ocean of space and time on the gossamer wings of invisible light. All part of God's infinitely artistic Universe.

Rather than trying to deceive people about God's prowess, I'd work to reveal it to them. Because science inspires mankind with precious insight into the mind of the Creator of all that exists. Far from being something to fear, science is the most powerful testimony to any Creator who crafted our natural world. And freed from the confines of politically expedient dogma, who knows what further wonders those young people might uncover to one day teach their children?

If I were Christian I would be filled with pride and wonder that my blood, organs, skin, and hair, are made from the elements cooked inside of ancient stellar furnaces. That the mortal coils we each inhabit were bequethed to us via countless generations of living things and exquisite constructs, from primate to bacteria, from organic protein to cosmic proton. And I would weep with the glorious knowledge that I am made of star-dust.

If I was a Christian, I'd guess Christ wouldn't really give a hoot about gays or abortion, and would in fact minister healing and grace to those people in God's name, and shower them with His love. There's only one or two verses in the entire Bible even mentioning homosexuals or abortion, as opposed to so many telling us to help the poor and sick and even those we might not approve of if we want to honor His Name. So if I was a Christian, I'd also shower anyone persecuted by religious opportunists with all the love they could stand, and tell them God loved them deeply and forever, no matter what they do or did. I would tell them that nothing they can do will ever stop God from loving them dearly.

If I were Christian, I'd have to guess that Christ, who was after all beaten to a bloody pulp and then nailed to a cross to die a horrible, lingering, death, for our sins, wouldn't think very highly of a party, a faction, a group, a pharaoh, a Caesar, or a President, that thinks they should be able to legally whisk people off to torture chambers to foreign shit-holes run by despots, with no trial or charges ever held for them! And were I a Christian, I'd have to guess that any believer would and absolutely should be very nervous about being associated with torture in any way, shape, or form.

Then again, maybe it's easy for me to say what I would do IF ... if I was a Christian. Maybe I have this all wrong. Or maybe it's much harder than it all sounds. But honestly, much of what I've written above doesn't sound that hard to do, does it? It begins with common decency, common sense, and common courtesy, that we all learned by the time we left kindergarten. I'm already doing a lot of it now and I bet most people are.

But I'd also have to guess there is one huge difference between Christ and me: I have little patience for folks that use religion as a tool of manipulation. And for the mad bombers and their enablers, whether they justify their killing sprees with passage's or sura's, I wouldn't mind if they spent the rest of their days in prison mumbling holy hatred to themselves while strapped to a gurney in a straightjacket. Christ was an inspiring example, and that's true regardless if the underlying theology is accurate or not. But I'd have a hard time living up to His standard. It would be challenging for me to forgive some of those people, including I'm sad to say those that are destroying this nation from within and without. But I'd pray for the strength to do so, if I were Christian.