I Would Be Offended, I Am Merely Annoyed.
Fact: I'm not a Christian.

Fact: I was educated in Taiwan at a private missionary school. For two school years.

What does that mean?

I had Bible study every school day. Two hours dedicated time, going through the Gospels, memorizing Psalms, and thinking that old school Hebrews of the Old Testament were rather stupid, because they kept on pissing off God every other generation. That and pity, because they were getting stomped on by just about every other peoples in the general vicinity. Afterwards I amended my opinion. God's Chosen People were suspiciously forgetful, but God spent most of His time killing a lot of them off with His anger. I figured they just lost a lot of role models and were winging it every other generation. Give or take. And also that God was awful mean back then. Logic of a pre-teen, here.

And you know what else? Ironically, since Taiwan does not have a sizable Jewish population (same for most of Asia), the official school week went from Monday to Saturday. Sunday off. That's it.

We had to take tests. Fill in the blank. Elijah went from here to where? At the widow's did he a. raise a son back from the dead b. prophesy or c. something or another (I don't remember)? We got graded on this knowledge. At one point, I could recite the first chapter of Ephesians. In front of class.

I thought Esther was a gutsy broad and totally worth honoring and remembering as a strong woman and a savior of her people. I thought her husband was a total idiot who didn't deserve her. Seriously. The whole reason Esther got position in his harem was because his official consort, Vashti, didn't want to be paraded around his male friends at a party after they've had a lot of liquor like a stripper when he commanded it. Asshole banished her to the back of the harem (I've read that there is some Jewish interpretation that she was executed) and got a bunch of new girls to soothe his ego.

I digress. But the point is, unlike people who go to church every so often and listen to a preacher preach who may or may not be theologically sound and who cherry pick verses without context, my knowledge of the Bible and Christianity comes from an education that treated the Bible almost like a supplementary textbook. Being an art fan, I even learned to identify common Catholic iconography and themes or characters that are popularly depicted. I sat down and subjected myself to reading Pilgrim's Progress.

I know stuff. Biblical stuff. Mr. D showed me a Bible of his that had a... table of contents... of the books of the Old and New Testament inalphabetical order. I was aghast. That just seemed wrong. You were supposed to know your Bible so well, you memorized the order the books were in. Not half-ass it with a table of contents! (Mathematicians who are disgusted by people who need calculators for two-digit addition will know this feeling) My school's Bibles didn't come with tables of contents. They weren't snazzy youth Bibles either. They were sober brown covers with just Bible embossed on the fronts in dulled golden serif font, with all the page edges browned from years of finger touching.

So when I see this:



I don't get upset. I get really annoyed.

CBN.com (for the 700 Club) has called for a Day of Prayer for the World’s Economies on Wednesday, October 29, 2008.

It's like these blasphemous fools have never watched "Ten Commandments"! Did they all just collectively forget what happens when a bunch of people start praying around a golden bovine-thing? I don't think God has changed His mind about getting His hate on when people start praying around a Golden Calf.

On top of that, that's another instance of something I really think is a pernicious symptom of the hypocrisy of many American Christians. They are using God like a glorified vending machine. Insert prayer, get results. The economy is not a divine construct. This is secular business and praying for intercession without first punishing the government and Wall St people responsible is just... Insulting. Infantile. It's like they think He's Santa Claus.

That's why I think when I hear the phrase "I'll pray for you" it comes out "I'm going to do absolutely nothing useful or helpful, to make myself feel better" in my mind. Because of this insane nonsense.

Is it any wonder this country is in a mess? There's swathes of the population who turn to religious solutions for secular problems! They reject science and logic because it doesn't fit their world view! And they go out in public and do this! They show to the world that they know absolutely nothing about what really caused the economic crisis and that they will do absolutely nothing to rectify it! Because this begins and ends in prayer!

You know what? I heard of the hominy that "God helps those who help themselves". So I'd think He'd much rather people stop bending His ear with prayer and vote for politicians who will regulate and wisely budget and reform taxes.

But you know, that's just me, a non-Christian. What would I know?