Late Friday night, as I was aiding and comforting a woman (for free by the way) while she brought a baby into the world, I received a Facebook message from a “cyberfriend” of two or three years. The message started off like this:
Hi Gina, First I want to start off by saying that I really admire the passion you have for the causes you believe in. I’m sure we will never know the tally of just how many women you have helped through your blog, your radio show, and the numerous other things you do.
Awww – that’s a nice thing to say, especially when I’m at my first birth, finally physically helping a woman in person. If I’m being honest, at the risk of sounding a bit egocentric, I actually get about 3-5 emails per week from strangers saying awfully nice things to me just like this. This one started out sounding very similar to all the other messages I get, so I decided to skim it quickly while I was walking down the hall to the waiting room on my way for some extra ice.
I was on my iPhone, briefly scrolling through when I noticed that paragraph after paragraph of this message contained the words “GUILTY” and “murderer” and “rapist” – all encompassed in what looks like scripture. Confusion is pouring into my brain. I may be an atheist – but I know what bible verses look like. I was raised and baptized as a Southern Baptist, and those people don’t mess around.
I get to the end, and find this shocking paragraph waiting for me:
If you’ve decided to reject the gift of forgiveness and you die in your sins, there is no hope for you. There is no purgatory. The wrath of God abides on you and you will spend eternity in Hell.
So here’s where I think “Oh, I get it. Her account must have been hacked. This is one of those crazy spam messages. I better close out of here before I get a virus.”
*pause*
*thinking*
*scrolling back to the top*
Okay wait. This can’t be a spam message because she addressed me directly in the beginning of this email. Oh my god. She’s serious.
Okay, so I’m standing there trying to understand how this person (who I didn’t even know was religious) has just sent me an email out of nowhere calling me a sinner, a liar, a jezebel, etc – and then tops the whole thing off with telling me that I’m going to burn in hell for eternity.
Now… call me crazy, but if I were trying to convert someone to my thinking, this is not exactly the way I’d go about it. Can you imagine if I told someone “You should really consider breastfeeding because if you don’t you will BURN IN HELL!!!” (<—-notice my tongue planted firmly in my cheek there.)
I know that I’m a good person. Besides the fact that I have people sending me 3-5 email reminders each week telling me what a good person I am, I am a constant do-gooder. Always have been. Even when I was drinking and staying out all hours of the night having premarital sex with total strangers, I was still a good person. I don’t steal, I don’t cheat, and there are only two situations that I will consider telling a lie: 1.) to protect someone’s feelings, and 2.) to protect my privacy.
Being an atheist doesn’t mean I’m a devil worshiper. It means I worship nothing at all. I don’t need a man in the sky to threaten me with eternal damnation to keep me from doing bad things. I can do good all by myself, thankyouverymuch. I am a good person because I have a strong moral compass. I’m generous to a fault because I like to make others happy. I don’t cheat or steal because I believe the universe has an energy that, when disrupted, carries negativity back to that person. Some call that Karma. I sometimes think of it as Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart. Call it what you will, but that’s about as spiritual as I get.
And to me, if there were a God, he wouldn’t be sending Good People like me to burn in hell for all of eternity just because I don’t believe in him. That sounds like an awfully spiteful, vengeful God to me.
Thomas Jefferson said:
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
I wonder if Thomas Jefferson is rotting in hell right now?
I think if there is a God (and seriously, you’ll never get me to believe there is) then when I die, he’ll throw open the pearly gates for me and say “Good job down there, Gina… I couldn’t be more proud of you.”
And I wonder what that God will think of people running around down here telling other kind people that they’re going to rot in hell? A Loving God certainly wouldn’t approve of intolerance and spite.
I’ve discovered recently that I have a whole lot of conservative Christians reading my blog, which is cool. I dig that. Other than the Jesus stuff, we probably have a lot in common. (and sorry about all the cussing, that’s another thing nobody can stop me from doing.)
But I’m going to be honest with you, it’s stuff like this that makes me really scared of Religious Types. Seriously. I’m more terrified of a group of religious fanatics than I am a dark alley filled with gang-bangers in my old drug-infested neighborhood. At least the gang-bangers don’t creep into my inbox telling me I’m going to burn in hell forever.
Pardon my language, but that shit is NOT COOL. And by the way? It’s not going to work, either.
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Whaddayou make of the message from this friend? Are you religious? Is this how you try to convert people? Has anyone every converted you using this kind of language? I’m dying to hear…
