1. "Whatever you hate in life will torture you for all eternity in Hell."The Sunday school teacher for 3rd and 4th graders at the church we attended in Troy, Michigan was kind of a creepy lady (in fact, half of these lame lessons come from her weird, twisted little brain). She taught us a lot of strange stuff, stuff that certainly added fuel to my just blossoming obsessive compulsive tendencies. I will never forget this lesson in terror. It was suggested that if we hated spiders, truly one of God's most loathsome creations, fostered this hatred until the day we passed from this Earth, then we would find ourselves in Hell, being forever plagued by a constant barrage of arachnids. By middle school I was starting to figure out that this little tid-bit was probably bullshit and began joking that I hated naked ladies with colossal boobs.
2. The same whack-job that warned us of the repercussions of a lifetime of spider intolerance, also shared with us this bit of wisdom: "You must love Jesus more than you love your parents." She made it sound easy as chocolate chess pie: "Hey, kids, love this guy you've never seen more than the people who drive you to your swimming lessons at the YMCA, give you Christmas presents, and feed, clothe, and shelter you. Love him more than the dad who creates amazingly exciting bedtime stories for you and your sister every night and the mom who pulls splinters out of your fingers and once a week makes that delicious Mexican dip you love for dinner." The moment I heard this, I flatly refused. Jesus was going to get love, don't get me wrong, but not more than my parents. As a third grader I would've been devestated to hear if my parents loved Jesus more than me.
3. "Never allow your thoughts to grow idle--that's when the Devil gets in."
This Sunday school lesson fucked me up big time! I heard this and was completely freaked out. "The Devil's gonna get in my head and make me do things--bad things," I thought. I made sure my mind was running at all times, which led to one of my still thriving quirks: counting. I've gotten slightly better over the years, but back in the day, if I let my thoughts slow down for a second, I thought I was in danger of a visit from Satan himself. So I counted words in my head and by high school, though I'd stopped worrying about the Devil, the counting process would sometimes drive me crazy. I didn't even spend the time fending off idle thoughts with reflections on God or whatever crazy bullshit had been crammed into my brain at Sunday school, which I'm sure is what this teacher (who is a menace to society--my only hope is she has been stopped by now) meant when she gave us her warning.
4. "The love you have for you wife should appear as hate when compared to your love for Jesus Christ." I heard this at a wedding--no joke. A wedding! The preacher was telling two young people bonding their lives in holy matrimony to hate each other. OK, not really, but I mean, what the hell? Jesus wants us to hate? Jesus wants our love for others to look like hate? Maybe he just said it wrong (please, God, I hope he said it wrong), because I'm fairly certain the man who encouraged people to love their enemies, didn't think we'd turn around and hate our spouse, or least make it look like hate. And how does love "appear as hate" exactly? Maybe somebody can clear this one up for me. Lame!
5. One of my all time favorite religious lessons is "masturbation is not wrong, unless lust is involved." That statement makes no sense whatsoever. It's illogical. Lust is half the fun of masturbation--masturbation is the sole result of lust (unless you are sick puppy, then lust can lead to all kinds of creepy, illegal activities). So, let me get this straight, if I want to masturbate, the church is fine with it, as long as I'm thinking about baseball or motorcycles or Queso Crunchwraps? Have you ever tried to masturbate to a Taco Bell commercial? Can't be done. And I use thoughts of baseball to make sexual intercourse last longer. That is how unstimulating I find baseball. And motorcycles? That's kinda gay, right? No options were provided when this statement was made. Just "don't lust" and "go forth and masturbate."
6. Oh, heck-a-roo, I'm having fun. How 'bout one more? This is perhaps the most heinous of the bunch, an example of why I detest some sub-sections of organized religion, despise those who claim to love Jesus Christ and be committed to his vision for a better world. I have never heard this in any of the churches I have ever attended, but an ex-girlfriend of mine had a grandmother who attended a church that believed that Black people were cursed because Noah's son, Ham, once saw Noah's cock and balls. It's called the Curse of Ham, and apparently because Ham saw Noah drunk and naked and told his brothers about it, instead of covering his father up, black people deserve to be vilified and thought of as 'less than.' Is that about right, Racist Southern Baptist Assholes? Dude, if you saw some silly drunk guy all naked and shit, you'd tell your buddies and you'd all have a good laugh, right? I mean, even if it was your dad. I mean, that's a hilarious story. Although, it kind of sucks if your family line is cursed for eternity. Anyway, my ex's grandmother was brain-washed by a retarded story and because it was told by some self-proclaimed emissary of God, she took it as Gospel and ran with it. That shit is dangerous and irresponsible.
You know, my father teaches Sunday school at his church and whenever I visit on the weekends, I attend his class. I've never heard him talk about hate or give his class excuses for racism. I've only heard Sunday school lessons that actually make me feel uplifted and I don't prescribe to any one religion exclusively. I think that's the difference between smart people doing the teaching and just some dumbass who was in the right room at the right time when the pastor needed a teacher position filled. My dad will work on a lesson all week. He has an extensive library and he'll consult the thoughts of several different writers when preparing his notes. Before you stand up in front of a group of impressionable people (especially children!), you need to be educated yourself, need to be sensitive to the needs of your flock. If not, you run the risk of severely screwing people up, even if your intentions are nothing by honorable.
Amen.
