Xtian Clubbin'

By Lord Jereth

In my 33 years on this earth I have met and conversed with many, many xtians. Well, having grown up being forced to go to church 3 and sometimes 4 days in a week, suffice it to say I have met my share. I have seen many types of xtians over the years from the benign "I can't explain it, I just believe" xtian, to the nazi-esque "yer gonna believe boy, if I gotta beat ya to death, yer gonna believe - praise gawd!" theologian, to even the psychotic flip-flop "Praise jeeezis, yer all goin' to hell 'cause gawd and I said so and if yer not careful I may help send ya there early you cock sucking faggot" xtian. But I think I have narrowed down a common denominator in all of them. A single habitual mindset, behaviour if you will.

They're all in the club.

Let me explain. Case in point:

I am a guitarist of 20 years. My favorite guitar series is the Ibanez Jem, designed by arguably the greatest guitarist of our time, Steve Vai, of which there have been many models and types over the years. In fact, many other guitar builders use many of the innovations that went into the making of this line of guitars today. I belong to an online community of Jem users who, although they play diverse styles of music, all swear by this one guitar. We enjoy coming together on a web forum to swap stories, keep informed, look up information, get questions answered, etc. We also come together in person to jam and enjoy music and each other's company once a year at what we call Jemfest, which is held in the US and in the UK.
Now, we know with the power of faith that the guitar we have chosen to play is the best that was ever created. There IS no faster, cooler, better sounding, better playing; better looking guitar and some of us will get in your face if you say otherwise.

Sound familiar yet?

I believe many xtians, if not pretty much all of them, are the same in this respect. I.E. if you question their faith you are questioning their club membership. If they allow you to rock or at least loosen the moorings of their faith then you have pretty much taken away their putting green privileges and free dessert card. That is why so few xtians, in my opinion, will listen to logic when confronted with the many falsities, fallacies, and contradictions of their faith. Especially with such get-out-of-jail-free cards as the "Natural Man" argument. Some will even get downright violent if you blow holes in their doctrine or make up baseless justifications out of thin air on the spur of the moment in an attempt to out-manoeuvre the truth. How do I know this to be true? I used to be a believer - as hard as that is for me to admit.

Good Xtians spend a lot of time with their faith. They read the bible faithfully and rarely if ever question the inconsistencies of even those few parts they believe they understand. Good club members don't question. They regurgitate what they hear from the pulpit at anyone who is unfortunate to either be so desperate for direction or cornered into listening, regardless of whether what they are repeating makes sense or not. Good club members get others to join. They tithe regularly or at least when it's convenient. Good club members help finance the community and the leader's newest Mercedes. They raise their children to believe, or at least force them to act like it. Good club members make little club members to perpetuate the club. They brow beat schools and government to allow and perpetuate their practices and symbols. Good club members remake the world in the club's image.

When you question their faith you question their sense of community. You question their 'truth'. And in some cases you question their sanity. When you get them to think about what they're doing you make them question the wasted hours, days, weeks and years they have spent working at their faith. It's only human nature to refuse to look at that. It's painful and instead of facing up to the fact and feeling foolish, the average xtian would rather deny it and keep up the masquerade. It's more comfortable that way. It's the path of least resistance.

How many times have you debated an xtian and in the end heard the words "I'll pray for you"? In that final statement of condescension also lays a hidden meaning: "I can't refute you, you're making me uncomfortable, I don't want to talk about it with you anymore".

Yes, in my shared Jem fetish I am of much the same mindset. But there is a major difference: I'm not banding together with my fellow Jem players to get Jems hung on the walls in schools or trying to force school children to play it whether they want to or not. I don't stand in front of pawnshops waiting to harass guitarists who want to get rid of their Jems. I don't have Tammy Fay Baker blubbering away 20 pounds of mascara on channel 47 because viewers aren't players of the Jem. I've never gone on a crusade to kill all non-Jem players. I don't wish eternal damnation, great nashing of teeth and endless torture in a lake of fire on non-Jem players - nor do I threaten non-Jem players with that end.

In the end, would I turn in my guitar of choice for a better one? If I ever found one that suited me better, and it is a possibility though I think unlikely, I would switch in a heartbeat. How many xtians do you know who can say the same thing?

So sayeth the Lord.