Here’s a joke:
Father Xmas and God were sitting around having a conversation. They were discussing camels and whether squeezing them through eyes of needles would respect their fundamental rights, when God began:
God: You know Daddy X, I don’t understand how you did it but I really respect you for it!
Daddy X: Whatcha mean?
God: That no one believes in you! Show me anyone older than ten who still believes there is a Father Xmas? How did you do it?
Daddy X: Hm. Perhaps it is that I bring them presents once a year and after a while those presents begin to suck, you know socks and ties and shit. And all the good expensive stuff that their wish for, regardless of how nice anyone was, I never bring with me.
God: Nah, can’t be that, I gave them all life and that, apparently, also sucks.
Daddy X: Perhaps it is my outfit which does have nuances of being a sexual pervert and all those children sitting on my lap. I assume parents realise that they don’t want their children sitting on the laps of old men with long white beards.
God: Nah, can’t be that, look at the priesthood.
Daddy X: Hm, perhaps it’s because I live at the North Pole? I mean every kid can figure out that it’s damn cold and that no one could survive there.
God: Ah ok, and here I am suspended above their heads in a place called heaven where everything is allowed, a real paradise. They all want to come up here! Oh ok, so instead of enjoying their lives now, they believe that when they die, they will grow wings and come up here.
Daddy X: If God wanted us to fly, he would have given us wings.
God: I need to make an amendment to the bible: “And on the seventh day God rested his tired hands and spoke thus: Life nor death have wings included”.
Daddy X: That reminds me, didn’t the Easter Bunny wanted to come out tonight?
That might not have been a particular good joke but at least it got your attention.
If you have problem with this joke, then stop being judgemental. Each to their own and live and let live. Use your judgemental energy to reflect, in all seriousness, why some beliefs we collectively leave behind with our childhood and others we cherish our entire lives, although none have any basis in truth nor fact.
Beliefs are personal and should be respected, especially since they are powered by faith.
Even if I make a joke about God, it’s not your God, it’s the God that I believe in. It’s the God as I have experienced him throughout my life - from the bible, from stories told to me, from my societal influences around me and yes I allow myself to form my own judgement, based on my personal believes and faith.
Speaking of my believe in the Easter Bunny: imagine a world where we would have wars because one tribe believed in the white Easter Bunny while the other believed in the orange polka doted Easter Bunny.
No one would take this seriously. But wars between Christians and Moslems are ok?
[Part of the Taboo Tiles series.]
When I say that this is my personal God and then you might say, hey but that’s not what XXX (where XXX could be the bible, you local priest or television) teaches about God so that can’t be God.
And that’s why it’s my personal God, it’s my faith in my personal God that he would have this conversation with Father Xmas. There is nothing that I have assumed that isn’t true or has not been taught in some way:
Meaning this joke has a basis in truth. All I have done is pull these truths together in a very particular way.
The Bible is meant to be interpreted and not to be taken as a societal rule book. Each person can interpreted that Bible as they would like and create the God they believe in.
I believe in a God who/which/whom does not desire to be believed in.
Does this make me an atheist? Ironically no since I believe in a God, simply a God that does not believe in themselves or who/which/whom does not desire to be the basis for a believe system with him/her/it at the top of the pyramid.
This would make for a great sci-fi story: imagine Daddy X being the myth that everyone believes in and God would be dumped as Father Xmas is dumped when one gets older.
Supermarkets would become our churches, shopping malls are temples and Father Xmas would be vengeful and spiteful.
Father Xmas would ensure that any competition (as those believers of the cult of the Easter Bunny) would be terrorised and told to stop it. Ideally converting to the Church of Father Xmas and praying to the Power Of Presents (POP).
His elves would become his disciples and one of them would be the bringer of bad presents - the Judas Elf.
Missionaries would be rolling around with shopping carts handing out presents and extolling the greatest of Father Xmas.
Fatherxmasians (as his followers would be called) would look forward to the day where they could join Father Xmas at the North Pole and live in ever-coldness, surrounded by something similar to an Amazon warehouse filled to the rafters with presents. The lucky ones would get an opportunity to work on the shop floor.
The Fatherxmasians would call it “polling” instead of “dying”, as in “I’m heading for the Pole, don’t worry about me!”. Ironically that white light one sees upon death is the natural whiteness of the North Pole!
Hell would a place of ever-warmth, with no presents (i.e. socks and ties are non-existent), coconut cocktails and sunny beaches, all those things that the North Pole does not have. The followers of the Cult of the Easter Bunny would also be hanging around with their cute Easter Bunny noses and fluffy white tails.