by Sr. Organza Pettingfield
As a woman of the cloth, I am well aware that the title seems provocative. Why do I think that Conservative Christians are idiots? Let’s start with the impossibly small minds of most conservative Christians, particularly in regards to the allegedly limitless power of God as they see him. These same people become apoplectic about transpeople because…well, honestly it doesn’t matter why they think it- it’s dumb. These same people can read about an unnaturally old man who is told by a disembodied voice to build a giant boat because it’s going to rain a bunch and as a punishment for wicked men and apparently wicked hippos or elephants, the world will be flooded. So he needs to take two of every living thing on the planet, put it on the boat and hope to fuck it floats. This is not just the cutesie animals we see in children’s wallpaper borders (I’ve never known a time when genocide was made so adorable). These are the lizards and snakes and those ugly dogs that look like they have mange. All of ’em. If you can sit there with your pious, smug face Luanne and tell me that you believe this story as it’s told and then even after a catastrophic worldwide flood, this same giant boat piloted by the only perfect man and his obnoxious family lands on a mountain top in Turkey and every single one of these animals not only safely leaves the confines of the ark without devouring one another but somehow make it from Turkey…in Asia Minor…ALL the way to say China, without food, yet you cannot wrap your little mind around the concept of a transperson? Then I think the god in whom you believe is a limited, weak and feeble god indeed. And just as an aside, can someone tell me how a whole class of animals like kangaroos, wallabies, echidnas and koalas made it from Turkey to Australia? Did they build little rafts and float from Indonesia? Did they fly Quantas? How? And if you even think of saying a miracle, don’t fucking look me in the eye and tell me transpeople can’t exist. If god can float a kangaroo 6000 miles from Istanbul to Sydney, he can make a transperson.
While I am on the subject of gender and sexuality let’s rap about the Virgin Mary. Here is this person, basically a teenager just before she would have gotten her donkey cart learners permit, who becomes pregnant all on her own- parthenogenesis, big bang bong and presto baby Jesus. When Mary, in her naivety asks how the hell that’s possible without having sex, the angel explains that “nothing is impossible with God” and she’s just going to be pregnant. So, if it is indeed true that nothing is impossible with God, how is it that conservative Christians still think anyone in the LGBTQ community is somehow an impossibility? It is utter bullshit. God is so powerful that he can get a human woman pregnant all by herself but can’t make someone gay? It seems to me that making a person gay, which is just a bit of a flip of a genetic switch is far simpler a matter than bending the laws of mammalian biology. And on the subject of power, how powerful can god be if he can’t stop a gay person from existing? If gay people are such an abomination, why are they there? Again, your god is weak.
This is a perfect segway into the subject of science. We live in an age where suddenly science is not only a matter of opinion, but it has also become a matter of belief. Is it because when you apply the scientific method to your overfed, overconsuming, over fossil fuel burning asses you seem that much more sinful and ridiculous? This has to be it because I have noticed that in some cases science is alright with your subset. In my spare time, I do enjoy a good true crime show. In these shows, almost always set in some dumpy little town riddled with meth and focused on Friday night high school football, y’all have no problem with DNA evidence. This science that brought us the discovery of DNA that clears your hillbilly family from a heinous crime suddenly becomes evil if it says that climate change is real, or that fossils were not randomly scattered around the globe by the devil for confusion (Yes, some Christians really believe this. Which makes me give a brava to Satan for being amazingly crafty in his spare time. Apparently busy hands are also the devil’s workshop.) Or when science confirms that COVID is a real virus or that vaccines, shown to work in billions of cases all over the world against a host of diseases, now you suddenly you have an issue with science? Science, which is inherently nonpartisan, has now grown liberal wings and is peppering the landscape with propaganda because liberals have nothing better to do that to torment imbeciles with truth. (A side note on the anti-vaccine crowd, especially those of you who were wearing “Jesus is my vaccine” or that “Jesus was never vaccinated.” Of course he was never vaccinated, he died in 30 AD. Not only did no one own a microscope but they hadn’t been invented yet. And people already had a hard enough time as it was believing Jesus’ story. Do you think it would have been any easier for him had he also added in, “By the way- when you get sick, it’s not Satan or sin, but tiny, virtually invisible creatures that live in your blood that do.”? Had he ever said such a thing, they probably would have just stoned him straight away.)
As a nun, I can appreciate religious belief. I think healthy religious belief can be good for the soul and I know quite a few whores who need Jesus…and likely penicillin. However, when one ignores logic because faith somehow contradicts it, I start to wonder are these people religious for the right reasons? I’m not even sure many so-called Christians practice their faith completely. Let’s take this recent fiasco in Los Angeles. What I don’t understand is how an evangelical Christian can quote at great length and with gusto half of the Book of Samuel yet when you hint at Matthew 25, they call you a radical liberal. I don’t mean to be a nitpicky old nun, but when Jesus says we are to welcome strangers because these least of his little ones are synonymous with him and you don’t do that, I want to know why.
One last thing, because the more I write, the angrier I get, but judgmental Christians. These people shouldn’t even exist yet we are inundated with Christians carrying all kinds of signs condemning any one of a thousand different problems they take with the modern world. If only Jesus had given us an example of say a judgmental man, pointing out a splinter in his brother’s eye but somehow missed the giant beam in his own eye. If only he had said that to someone! I am also fairly certain that somewhere in the Gospels, he expressly forbade his followers from ever judging or condemning other people. I really just want one Christian who can go to church and have that read to them on Sunday can turn around and protest transpeople or put immigrants in concentration camps on Monday, to explain it to me like I am an idiot. Because if you have the audacity to call yourself a Christian and claim you are saved even when you are a total asshole to every other person you meet, then I think perhaps one is not fully aware of what is being asked of you. Maybe what we need is a remedial Christian school so that these judgmental cruel fucks who love nothing more than to wear their giant diamond crosses and toss out racist, xenophobic bullshit can finally learn what a Christian truly is.
