Times are desperate for Christians in the Netherlands. One in every 6 clergymen is either an atheist or an agnostic, so in an effort not to lose his job, the Rev. Klaas Hendrikse has invented a special form of Christianity that:
a. Doesn’t believe Jesus existed historically [the Gnostics beat him to it though]
b. Doesn’t believe in the afterlife [ditto the Jews]
c. Doesn’t believe a God exists at all [that one’s new]
It’s kind of like serving Kool-Aid without any of the flavoring, and then claiming that while the liquid you’re drinking certainly isn’t Kool-Aid, there are a lot of lessons to be learned from our property destroying friend, Oh Yeah! Of course, the difference here is that the Kool-Aid Man (who now wears pants, btw) only condones slavery to flavor, not human beings. He is also, judging by his new digs (purple shoes, Hawaiian shirt) clearly OK with man-on-man love.
Obviously, there are a number of annoying “traditionalists” trying to ruin his good time by claiming everything that defines Christianity gets thrown out the window in his “non-version”. I’m inclined to agree with them. We’ve all heard the trope that “Jesus was a good moral teacher”, but aside from telling folks a few nice things others had figured out a long fucking time ago, the rest of his teachings are either insane or terrifying. Consider the threat of hell for disbelieving his nutty claim. How would you react to any moral tutor who placed such restrictions on doubt?
Our morality has evolved since the Bronze Age, and yet Christianity continues to try and argue “they had it right all along”. For that to be true, you would need to erase roughly 20 centuries of murder, abuse and genocide committed in the name of some various offshoots of the doctrine (there are over 30,000 of them). Even if you did that, you’d notice a suspicious lack of evidence unbelievers are morally depraved individuals. In fact, on average it seems though atheists actually commit fewer crimes than Christians. So what the fuck is the point in carrying all the loaded garbage of religion if you think its claims are bogus anyways? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that guys like Klaas have spent their entire lives preaching nonsense, and have no marketable skills in the real world. They can either quit and get a real fucking job, or keep pretending that the life of a dead Palestinian Jew 2000 years ago was an event of such importance that people should give their hard-earned money to a bunch of old dudes in dresses that talk to an imaginary being.
Seriously, in that position I’d probably choose the latter. Does that make me a scumbag?