BloggEd

Sorry, instead of my usual rants or blurbs about intricacies of programming I thought to rant about the state of our church.

It’s interesting - no, sad really - how those among the clergy who most clearly indicate actual belief in the Bible are oppressed by the church itself. Ok, this is nothing new, but the eagerness to put biblical people out of the ministry is appalling. It seems like the history repeats itself again. About 500 hundred years ago Christians (and many others) were tortured and burned at stake, because their biblical views didn’t work very will with the power-hungry institution called church, using religion only as means to control people and make them do their bidding. By the way, are you aware that etymologically religion is rather close to _ligare, which means to bind? which in turn, in my opinion, defines religion quite well; it is not about faith really, but of control through rules, empty rituals and other things to divert the attention away from things that actually matter.

Well, of course it’s different now; people are not burned at stake for heresy, but sometimes I feel it’s like that only because we have laws (originally based on the Christian values, for what it’s worth) which prevent it. My whole point here is that the church shows much more anger and hatred towards biblical ministers than secular people in common. That’s kind of peculiar, no?

As an example, you could read about Jari Rankinen and draw your conclusions. I think you find it odd no matter what you believe (or not) in.

It’s no secret that many people among the clergy are actually atheists. They see Bible only as a moral guide, and their version of christianity is devoid of all the very central ideas in it (eg. miracles, who Jesus really was etc.)—yet they want to work in the church. I just don’t can’t understand it. I have much higher esteem to plain-vanilla atheists and agnostics who live true to their beliefs (or lack of it) than people who pretend to be something completely else.

The church is mad if it tries to compete with secular organizations and values. There are already gazillions of ethical organizations that actually do good things much better than church ever can, because the whole reason for their existence is in accordance with their commitments and policies. So it’s only logical that the church should stick to its original meaning, and failing that, cease to exist. Otherwise it’s just a waste of resources and time.