Know The Lord
I recently overheard a very disturbing conversation. One woman was very upset because her friend was on his deathbed due to cancer. She was telling her friend about it and her friend asked her if the dying friend “knew the Lord.”
I was just overhearing this conversation and it wouldn’t be polite for me to interject, but in my mind, had this woman said that to me while I was upset about a dying friend, I would have really bitched her out. That is probably one of the most insensitive things I have heard in a long time.
It really isn’t all that surprising though. It isn’t unusual for Christians to use grief to propagate their ridiculous beliefs. But what really bothers me about this is that this woman actually thinks she is concerned about her friend’s dying friend. What if her friend told her that the guy was Jewish or Buddhist or even dare I say it… an atheist? How fucking comforting would that be?
“No, he didn’t ‘know the Lord,’ he was an atheist. So I guess he will be tortured for all eternity. Thanks for reminding me.”
I can’t believe that Christians actually believe that their God (as depicted in the Bible) is a loving God who send/allows (depending on the spin) people to be tortured for all eternity. That one aspect of Christianity alone makes it one of the most ridiculous belief systems on the planet. I guess that is why so many Christians just re-write the Bible in their minds so that Hell either doesn’t exist or is only for the really, really bad people.
The truth is that with people like this woman around, Sartre had it right; Hell is other people.
Filed under: conversation, death, deathbed conversion, Religion