"We all gotta die someday...."


Yesterday someone told me about a sermon they heard. The premise of said liturgical talk is as follows.

It seems the preacher had given up smoking a number of years earlier. He had, in subsequence, given up alcohol, and then coffee as well. Sometime recently it had occurred to him that he missed coffee, and that it's absence from his life had really done more harm to him emotionally than it had benefited him physically.

To him, the logical conclusion of this revelation was that instead of giving things up, it was possible that the philosophy of "everything in moderation" might be a better road for the individual to take. Since our lives are "in god's hands" anyway, eating fatty foods and smoking really doesn't matter. He repeated again and again, "we all gotta die someday..." indicating that it was god's will when our time came, and that we have neither the capacity nor the responsibility to affect said end in anyway.

Frankly, I was shocked at this. Christianity generally holds the totally opposite position on pretty much everything. By extension, this argument of "we all gotta die someday..." can logically become "do what feels good". Last time I checked, that was basically what Anton LaVey was on about for all those years. Am I missing something here? Has the jesus set become so lazy, selfish, greedy and slothful that they actually buy into this justification for their rampant wastefulness?

After being told about this, and having the overwhelming logic and sensibleness of it explained to me, I gave pause in the inevitable silence after doctrine is presented. The spot where I'm supposed to say either, "Praise Jesus!", or "wow, I'd never thought it that way before... where's this church?" My response, and I chose to keep it short, lest I should have offended, was as follows.

"The fallacy of that argument is that it's predicated on the supposition that people have even a modicum of self control." It was a really good response because I'd had five minutes to think of it from the time the whole story started. It probably came off sounding a bit posh, but I got my point across. I wasn't rude about it, I just let it go. I'm actively trying to be non-confrontational with my agnosticism.

I'm honestly just blown away by the utter absurdity of this argument. People need limits. Worldwide organized religion has thrived for millenia by exploiting people's willingness to be controlled by having arbitrary limits placed on them. Eating, drinking and doing whatever you want, as long as its in "moderation" simply doesn't jive with the way the world works. You can't say, "well, I'll just have a bit of tuck off the old crack rock. not too much though, I want to save room for supper!" It doesn't work like that. If people were capable of having "just a touch" of the black tar heroin, there would be no such thing as addiction. In justifying the correctness of doing something bad, as long as it only once in a while, you've written a moral blank check to the world.

"Well, let's see, it says here you like to fuck young boys, do you?"
"Yeah, I suppose I do."
"How often do you partake?"
"Maybe once, twice a year, tops."
"Oh, right then. On your bike son, no harm there. Just a bit of fun. Everything in moderation, eh?"
"Cheers, thanks mate!"

The part that bothers me the most about this argument is how totally illogical it is. Obviously I think religion is a total joke, [no, strike that, not a joke, a dangerous and terrifying plauge on our populace] but I think this sort of thinking is even more dangerous than the traditional christian gobbelty-gook. It gives carte-blanche for people to live solely for themselves, justifying their gross overconsumption, waste and gluttony. All because "it's in god's hands".

Don't forget to do what you like, "we all gotta die someday...". No matter what the consequences
- posted by Mason @ 11:02 PM