starling

You have to love my uncle. He's nice, kind, unassuming, and a complete and total fundie. He won't yell at you or wave books in your face, but he'll just give that secret self assured smile and disregard everything you say because his religion told him to. And as his religion tells him to prostletyze, and he knows I'm caught in a inescapable depressing doom, he occasionally sends me gifts. This particular gift called "God's Little Instruction Book on SUCCESS" (by W.B. Freeman) is about as useful as cat's milk, but I shall not judge a book by its cover, but instead judge it by the helpful anecdotes it states within.

To describe the structure of the book is this: a quote of universal wisdom, followed by its relevant phrase in the Bible. One on each page. This has two functions: first if you assume the bible is true, you will follow the accompanying quotes because it says so in the bible. Second, if you observe that these universal truths are obviously true, then you will follow the ways of the bible, because its accompanying quote is obviously directly relevant to modern life, and not the rantings of 2000 years dead sheep ranchers.

I'll give examples of some of the quote pairs in the book, followed by what I think about that particular pair.

• 
  Success isn't measured by the position you reach in life; it's measured by the obstacles you overcome.
  Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. (James 1:12)
  First off, success is measured by the position you reach in life! It may not be your rank at your company, but where you live, what you do, your quality of life is your coordinates in the universe: your position. Putting that aside, what is this crown of life God supposedly promised, and how did James know God promised it? Is it success? Or is it maybe just a fish story that has no relation to success whatsoever?
• 
  Don't wait for your ship to come in; swim out to it.
  I am the Lord, who opens a way through the waters, making a path right through the sea. (Isaiah 43:16)
  These quotes, if I don't miss my context are directly contradictory. The first one says go find success yourself, and don't fall into the trap of inaction. The second says don't go through the waters yourself; wait around until God decides to push them aside, Moses. So what should we do, realize our potential in life and work to make our success, or defer meekly to the Lord and wait for the earth to magickally be herited to us?
• Success in the world means power, influence, money, prestige. But in the Christian world, it means pleasing God.
  And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight." (1 John 3:22)
  Isn't it interesting how Christians are supposed to give power, influence, money and prestige to other people? Say, the wealthy elite? It's almost as if the wealthy elite designed Christianity in order to get you to give them all your power, influence, money and prestige. It's similar to the church of Scientology, where the vast majority believe they have to purge the body of their Thetans, but the elite minority realize it's all a big scam and gleefully lie in order to rape their fellow worshipper's wallets. The sad thing is, the liars are more sane than the believers, even though they both suck royal monkey balls. As for the bible quote, how exactly does one go about figuring out what is pleasing in God's sight? Wait let me guess, read the bible right? So the bible will tell me if the bible is true or not?

There are 149 helpful quote pairs such as these. I'm sure you're already feeling the spiritual enlightenment flowing through your body. In fact, there's 9 of these books, for a whopping total of 1,350 anecdotes based on blind assumption, Christian meekness, and self deprecation, all in the name of success. One I note is "God's Little Instruction Book for Women." I wonder if that one is written in pictures, since Christian women are too devoted to their husbands to learn how to read English, even if their inferior minds could grasp such complex male knowledge. So if you were wondering just what it is that Christians poison their minds with to make them so freaking annoying, here it is right in front of me. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a book burning to attend to...

Special bonus!

My uncle also gave me a handy pamphlet telling the story of the "Rebel Absalom." It's attempting to take the harsh, unforgiving words of the bible, and dumb it down to the cool teen speak that kids are saying these days. You see, if you preach the same unfair, corrupt and cruel ideas, but you say it in "happening" words, then suddenly people will understand, and start hurting themselves for you and your church! As the storyette goes, "Honor is a tricky thing. It's like a field goal kicker on a football team." It says wise anecdotes such as "Amnon did something really mean to his sister," and "While Absalom was away, he decided he was going to do some more stuff."

Through the use of these quotes, you can infest your beliefs into the minds of your children, and have them following along in your shadow somewhat like paralyzed deer in the headlights of an oncoming train. Whoever gave me this pamphlet, "must have been wearing his 'bad-idea jeans' that day" because the story of Absalom describes a brutal murderous tyrant crushing a valiant but doomed revolution, except that in this case the tyrant is the good guy, and the leader of the revolution Absalom is "wearing his 'bad-idea jeans' that day".

The message of the story is you should conform to authority because it's authority, and if you don't, you'll be hanged in a tree by your own hair and cut to pieces by the king's soldiers, because you're such a bad person, not because the king is a brutal and totalitarian dictator whatsoever. "Absalom didn't honor the person who was over him," and the attitude of this pamphlet was that he deserved to die. So learn from this well, don't honor the person who is over you! Just watch out for their soldiers. But don't honor them in any way, because it's people like that that create crappy stories like this, and try to re-word them in cool hip ways so that children and gang members will understand and obey.

I can just imagine those fat wealthy anti-Christian liars, getting together to make this story the way it is, chortling gleefully over how much it will screw up children and encourage gang loyalty, thus poisoning the poor and making them unable to rise to success. Malthus must be turning in his grave!

Yeah this one's going on the pile too. I wonder what the regulations are for burning chemically treated paper.

Toto

chuckle