I was not on campus last December to hear “Cry to God’s” righteous message. I didn’t know what I was missing until, by the grace of God, the group returned on Tuesday to inform students of the impending doom their hedonism would garner.
Propelled by something stronger than human will, believers yelled holy truths at a growing crowd of naysaying students. Somewhere between getting quotes and snapping pictures of a charismatic man with a sign that read, “Hail Cheeses,” something unexpected happened: Cry to God’s venerable disciples reached me, and I am forever changed.
While the zealots yelled about the punishment awaiting those guilty of pot-smoking, promiscuity and perversion, I became painfully aware of the fact that I wasn’t baptized. In oversight bordering on negligence, my non-theistic parents had taught me to resist dogmatic fear-mongering and form my own beliefs. Only luck—or something more divine—had spared me from perishing before I heard “Cry to God’s” message and was saved.
It’s scary to think that my free-thinking, hippie-nonsense parents had nearly condemned me to a fate so terrible as eternal torment in Hell. It’s scary to think about defying a god who came up with something like that.
Luckily, there was a body of water nearby. While my fellow Bear Cubs were busy ignoring Cry to God’s message, I dunked my head into the fountain in the quad. The water was holy just by being in the presence of such true believers. I would not be going to Hell!
But I realized something about fundamentalist religions: their God doesn’t love humankind.
Despite accomplishments like curing scores of crippling diseases, decreasing the frequency of conflicts through international cooperation, creating centuries of awe-inspiring artwork and making scientific discoveries that bring us ever closer to understanding the sublimity of the natural world, mankind is fatally flawed and God hates us.
Unfortunately, this is the only God we have. Repentance followed by rejection of all sins as determined by Cry to God would only be the first step. The next—and most important—step is to spread the message to infidels.
What people fail to understand—what I failed to understand—is that as hateful as people such as Cry to God members may appear, they truly love humankind. When you understand that we have a petty, vengeful and hypocritical God who will burn you for all eternity if you don’t follow his arbitrary rules, the true bravery of these heroes is evident. They are our “guys on the inside.”
They’ve studied this God character closely, so we don’t have to. They are desperately trying to tell us just what a dick God is and how unfathomably terrible it would be to suffer the condemnation He hands out so readily. They get it.
I mean, wouldn’t you do anything to avoid a fate so dire? Fear is my main motivator, so it didn’t take much more than that to convince me.
Friends and classmates, please: repent lest you suffer a destiny so evil and unforgiving, it’s almost like it was constructed over the millennia by power-seeking institutions playing off humankind’s worst fears of death and suffering.
When you join the winning team, be sure never to engage in dialogue. Non-believers love to trap you in logical traps with their reason. Just yell as loud as possible for as long as possible.
