Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Please do not read Romans 14:8 at my funeral

Mariah and I went to a funeral this morning for one of her uncles. She has like a bazillion relatives, which has the odd result that I have been to more funerals in the year and a half that we've been married than the other 29 years of my life combined.

In any case, it was a Christian funeral, so of course lots of Bible verses and praying. (At least there was no bad music...) Some of the Bible verses, I can understand why you would quote them at a funeral. For instance, they read something from Song of Solomon about how when you die you don't actually die, but instead you are chastised for a little while and then go to some kind of paradise, mumble mumble. It's a bit infantile, but I can see how it could be comforting.

But when we were coming in, the minister/pastor/whatever was reading this passage:

If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
--Romans 14:8


Uh, dude... Okay, so yeah, I know that many theists find the idea of "belonging to God" to be comforting, but I don't, and I don't really understand why they do. The way I parse it is, "Doesn't matter whether you live or die, either way you are Jesus' bitch." I just don't get it...

1 comment:

  1. Yes, the "belonging to God" thing is horrifying, not comforting. I remember reading something where an atheist pointed out the immorality of a god tricking, abusing, torturing, etc. people for its own purposes, and the believers answered that their god made us and hence owns us and so can do anything it wants to us. Injustice and torture are not immoral when the victim belongs to you. Kind of clarifies their view of wife-beating and child abuse, doesn't it? It's all part of the authoritarian mindset, which demands a hierarchy of subservience ("belonging").

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