{"id":219,"date":"2009-04-23T07:11:25","date_gmt":"2009-04-23T12:11:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=219"},"modified":"2009-06-26T12:24:17","modified_gmt":"2009-06-26T17:24:17","slug":"my-pal-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=219","title":{"rendered":"My Pal Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The other day I was talking to a Christian friend of mine and she made a comment that I always find even more ridiculous than most Christian comments. I wish I could say that it was a unique comment by some random schizophrenic or something, but I can\u2019t. The sad fact is that my friend wasn\u2019t schizophrenic and that this wasn\u2019t the first time I have heard this particular rhetoric. So here it is; my Christian friend told me that she hates religion. Just think about that one for a moment or two and let it bounce around in your head a bit. In fact, let me repeat it, because it bears repeating. My Christian friend told me that she hates religion.<\/p>\n<p>So I had to point out the elephant in the room and inform her that Christianity is actually a religion and that she is actually very religious. Of course I did know where she was going with this and of course she did indeed go there. \u201cChristianity is not a religion, it is a relationship with God,\u201d was her dogmatic reply as if reading a script for an audition. This is a line I have heard far too often and it really is pretty crazy. I wish there was a nicer way of phrasing it, but my friend actually thinks of Jesus as a personal friend\u2026 and not in a metaphorical way either. No, she and many other Christians at least think that they treat Jesus as an actual flesh and blood friend. I would have almost expected her to buy Jesus food when we went out for lunch. Seriously though, I think there is or at least ought to be a rule that say\u2019s that your friends have to actually exist and stuff. Let\u2019s fact reality, you can\u2019t go paling around with Jesus. You can\u2019t have an intellectual conversation with Jesus. You can\u2019t hug Jesus. You can\u2019t kiss Jesus. And you most certainly can\u2019t have an intimate relationship with Jesus. Jesus isn\u2019t real!<\/p>\n<p>Christianity is a religion and this type of make-believe is even more ridiculous that the already obvious make-believe that makes up the rest of this ridiculous religion. It is like saying that the already make-believe story of Christianity is too real and so we need to add another layer of make-believe and then call that reality. I\u2019m sorry, but that is not reality. That takes one further away from reality.<\/p>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=219\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The other day I was talking to a Christian friend of mine and she made a comment that I always find even more ridiculous than most Christian comments. I wish I could say that it was a unique comment by some random schizophrenic or something, but I can\u2019t. The sad fact is that my friend [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,9],"tags":[2215,43,11,2216,344,2217,341,343,2214,342],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=219"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":367,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions\/367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}