What, I'm Still Here? No Rapture for thousands of unfortunates

Dear abandoned christian,

Lo and behold, it's May 22nd.  You were supposed to migrate back to the lord yesterday and now you're down in the dumps.  Did he forget?  Did he change his mind?  No, I'm sorry, neither happened.  You were duped.  There is no rapture.  There might not even be a god.  This whole story about getting lifted off of the Earth and charioted away to heaven is the type of tale that many of us call bullshit.  And bullshit is what people do best.  That's why we have so many words for bullshit, and sales people, and business people, and lawyers and politicians and, yes, religious leaders.  They are all deceitfully selling something in order to turn a profit, either in power or material wealth. 

Anyone that promises you eternal salvation in exchange for your paycheck is conning you.  No one on this planet knows what will happen after you die, not the people who wrote the "holy" books, not the people who put the books together, not the people who maintain them, and definitely not the imams, priests, monks, or anyone else.  They are hoodwinking you along with millions of others.  So you shouldn't feel so bad - you're not alone.  You're not special.  You're not getting saved and you're not the only person susceptible to getting hoaxed.  Chicanery is widespread.  You didn't go and blow yourself up or sell off all of your belongings.  Take this as a learning opportunity.  Now you've learned something about yourself.  You are very eager to believe cockamamie fables. 

You see, there are two sides to all of us.  The ability to bullshit and the ability to be gullible.  Like David Hannum said, "There's a sucker born every minute."   That's why this arrangement works so well.  The arrangement of religion and god and the hierarchy of religion.  The priests, or any leaders, swindle the parishioners, or any followers, and they in turn are bamboozled by their leaders, and in turn they are hornswoggled by their leaders, or some of those in that chain are fully aware of the grand scheme and only stay in it because of the  power and wealth.  Of course that's probably why they all stick to it.  Who doesn't want power and wealth?  That's what you're hoping for in heaven, which leads again to your susceptibility to cockamamie ideas.

I mean stop to think about religion and money for just a second.  A lot of people are getting rich using religion as their product, think Robertson, Falwell, Baker.  Why are religious leaders asking people for money?  Shouldn't god provide for them if they are so charmed?  At one time, and still some do, priests and holy people created products, wine, clothing, and provided services to people in need.  Nowadays, evangelicals just sell DVDs of their sermons, preach to packed arenas, fondle little boys, issue death warrants, and create division and havoc.  They have to be megalomaniacs to market themselves and their ideas as much as they do.  Basically they're megalomaniacs on welfare. 

Now, again you can't take all the blame, Christianity has a great marketing scheme.  It's hard to ignore.  They've got a great product in eternal life.  Crosses are a ubiquitous symbol, Jesus is on billboards.  It's like Coca-cola or Pepsi, it's everywhere and it's relatively cheap for the value.  So you fell for a pretty well crafted scheme.  Really.  Bernie Madoff could only do it for about twenty years.  The church has been doing it for over a thousand.  You can't beat yourself up about it.  Anyone could get flimflammed, duped, wheedled, tricked, ripped-off, or bilked the way you did.

The question is about what you will do next.  You can either continue being deceived or start asking yourself if believing in nonsensical stories about a supernatural being who created the whole universe just for the amusement of people is worth sacrificing your Sundays for.  Add to that, this creator killed himself in the form of his son so that you could be saved and carted away from the earth on the glorious return of the son, it gets you some dubious stories.  It's a pretty far-fetched story to begin with but add the stuff in between and it makes it even more so.  But it's faith, which is a euphemism for gullibility, so it doesn't have to make sense.  It just has to feel right and have been indoctrinated through daily prayer, weekly sermons, and the ultimatum of eternal damnation.

My advice to you, barring the cessation of your religious practices, is to take a break from it for a while.  Take it easy read some other books, not just the ones about the end times or christian ideals.  You could try reading the bible, for example.  But for christ sakes stop being such a loyal follower.  You can love but not have to do what some egomaniac tells you to do or believe what some lunatic in a robe instructs you to believe.

So good luck moving forward.  Please take heart and remember the words of Elbert Hubbard, "Don't take life too seriously.  You'll never get out of it alive."

Your humble servant,
Kilgore Spinoza   

P.S. Hope you can get your belongings back.