Happy Easter!: How Christians killed Christianity in the United States

This is a seven foot tall concrete bunny rabbit, in the Newport Beach Art Park, which I was thinking about going to today, since it's Easter.  But I decided not to.  It's a long haul down there.  I still have no idea how a giant rabbit and basket of colored eggs became associated to Easter.  I'm not going to bother googling it.  #steveemigphotos

This is Bunnyhenge, it's a real place, also in the Newport Beach, California art park.  It's a circle of 14 concrete bunnies, each about 3 1/2 feet high, on the hill, above the seven foot high bunny in the photo above.  #steveemigphotos

This is the view from the lookout spot above Bunnyhenge, with most of the art park below, as well as Newport Beach City Hall, and the Pacific ocean inthe distance.  #steveemigphotos

Why did I think about going to Bunnyhenge on Easter morning?  It's a beautiful place, it's on a hill, filled with all kinds of fragrant plants, flowers, and various sculptures.  Bunnyhenge, and parts of the art park overlook the Pacific ocean.  I don't go to church anymore.  So going to a beautiful, outdoor spot with giant bunnies seemed as good of a place to go as any on Easter morning.  I seriously thought about it.  

I still believe in God, more than ever actually.  But I've given up on religion.  I'm not alone.  Check this out.  This is what came up when I googled "Is Christianity in decline in the U.S.?"  Right from the Google results page.

Yesterday I saw this article on CNN's website, a P.R. piece trying make the case that Christianity in the U.S. is more popular than it actually is.  I realized that traditional churches have lost a lot of membership, and that fundamentalist and evangelical "Christianity" have grown in recent decades.  But I honestly had no idea that only 64% of Americans now call themselves Christians.  That really surprised me.  I still thought somewhere around 90% of Americans identify as Christians.  But that number has dropped to 64%, in whatever poll was used.  It's hard to figure how many people have given up on church, given the change in population in 50 years, and whether kids are included in this number.  But the number has to be somewhere around 25 to 40 million Ameicans that have given up on the Christian religion, or at least belonging to a church, since the 1970's.    

I wrote the rest of this blog post this morning, as my laptop battery was dying.  I'll stand by my personal beliefs on why this has happened.  You may agree or disagree, I don't care.  As an American, you have the right to your opinion, and I to mine.  I put my thoughts out there, in my blogs and eleswhere, but don't believe anyone is obligated to share my opinions.  If my thinking makes sense to you, that's cool.  If it doesn't, then it doesn't.  I'm just fine with agreeing to disagree with people.  

The peak in the number of people who call themselves Christians came when I was ten years old, and was going to a big Lutheran church in the small town of Willard, Ohio, in 1976.  I later went through Lutheran catechism classes for a year, and was given my first Bible of my own by that church.  Years later I read most of the Old Testament, and all of the New Testament, four or five times, start to finish.  

That time of peak Christianity, 1976, was also about the time that a small group of highly politicized people decided to work towards a group of "Christians" taking control of the Republican party, American politics, the media, and all major businesses in this country.  Not long after that  "evangelical" megachurches began to pop up.  There has been an organized effort by this originally small group of people to take control of "Christianity," as a way to take political, social, legal, and media control of the entire United States of America.  These are the people working to dismantle democracy and turn the U.S. into a theocracy.  

In the 50 years since, these people, who in no way live by the ACTUAL teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, have infiltrated politics, much of the media, many major businesses, and much of the U.S. legal system.  These people have driven tens of millions of Americans away from Christianity in the process.  They have also warped the meaning of the term "Christian," to where it actually means a lunatic to most unaffiliated people now.  We see these politicians who call themselves devout Christians acting like complete fucking lunatics, on TV, and in other media, every day.  

I'm calling bullshit on you.  Fuck every fucking one of you political "Christians."  The original followers of Jesus lived communally.  Everyone had to give everything they owned to the group, to be used for everyone's good.  Two people refused to give everything, and they dropped dead on the spot, according to the book of Acts.  That's what the whole book of Acts in the New Testament describes, how the first followers of Jesus of Nazareth actually lived.  I know of no Christian who lives that way in today's world.  None of us do.

I've read the New Testament, start to finish, like an actual book, four or five times.  Some chapters and books I've read several times in addition to that.  I highly recomend doing this, alone.  I got a much different take on the teachings of Jesus than what I'd been taught through a small number of individual verses growing up.  When I came to a verse that puzzled me, I would read different versions of the Bible to see if that helped clear it up.  It can help to meditiate or pray for understanding on these verses, as well.  Sometimes an epiphany, or insight, comes later, to help you understand them.  

I did this on my own, 25-35 years ago, just to try and figure out what made sense for my own life.  I also read all of the gnostic gospels that were available in English, and some basic history of the Bible itself.  The oldest version of "The Bible" dates to about the 4th century A.D., nearly 300 years after the life of Jesus.  

The evangelicals are not followers of the teachings in the Bible.  It's a political group using religious references for political, social, fianncial, or other gain.  The Bible is silent on abortion, and only 4 or 5 verse even mention pregnancy.  That was most likely something handled by women back then, and that men had little, if anything, to do with.  The concept of Hell is only in modern Bibles about 12 times.  Much of the Bible is written in metaphor, and not meant to be taken literally.  

Evangelicals can spout all the nonsense they want, but your actions prove otherwise.  Their warped version of what Christianity means is not something I want to be associated with.  I no longer call myself a Christian because it has become a farse by so many high profile people who call themselves Christians today.  Happy Easter fuckwads!  

I believe in a higher power, and do my best to help other people in the ways I can.  I don't give a damn what you think.  There are plenty of good, decent people who do go to church, and that's fine.  But not very many of them grow much spiritually after grade school.  Church has many functions, such as a community and learning about these teachings from 2,000 yearsd ago.  If church helps you be a better person day to day, that's great.  But a growing number of people feel differently, myself among them.  

I, personally, want nothing to do with the over-politicized, highly authoritarian minded thing that American Christianity has become.  I have no obligation to believe what you believe, and you have no obligation to believe what I believe.  We should be able to move on as a country, despite our differences of opinion.  But that seems to be getting harder and harder.  And that also seems to be why so many people don't go to church, or have found other beliefe systems these days.  

I wrote this post spontaneously this morning, I had no intention ahead of time to write all this.  I generally avoid all talk of religion, but some dream or something, early this morning, got me thinking along these lines.  I tried to finish quick before my laptop battery died.  I came back later, added quite a bit, and proofread it.  If you don't like my thoughts, go read or watch something else.