I don't get Christians

On this last trip, I got to listen to the radio a lot. If I can get NPR (which is most anywhere), I'm pretty much content, since it's usually interesting, and they actually go into depth in their news stories. They also cover topics other than the latest missing pretty white woman. Then again, NPR is staffed with only America-hating, baby-eating liberals, not real people.

Occasionally, however, I channel surfed just to see what I could find. The two constants I could almost always get on the radio, no matter where I was, were NPR and some sort of Christian radio. I actually listened to the latter a bit now and then, feeling a bit like an anthropologist visiting an alien culture. I just don't get the need of people to have their believe so continuously and constantly reinforced. Is their faith really that weak? To have one segment of the media 24/7 focused on reminding me non-stop of just a single idea would bore me, frankly, and I don't understand why people listen to it. Are they afraid that they're going to forget that "Christ Jesus died for their sins"? Or that only by following the "right" rituals and by worshipping in this proscribed manner (no, not in that manner, that's a heresy) can they avoid the everlasting torture that they so richly deserve and that their God of infinite love will be more than happy to bring down upon them?

The notion that the Christian media is constanly pushing isn't a particuarly pleasant idea, either. To be continuously reminded that you are unspeakably loathsome, and that no matter how hard you try to be virtuous, you are still lower than the slime that grows in a polluted cesspool isn't all that nice. This satirical blog post pretty much sums it up perfectly: (via Pharyngula)

...by thinking those thoughts, you have chosen to be branded with hot metal and repeatedly, brutally sodomized. You have said, through your thoughts and actions, that you want to be chained down on a splintery rack, stretched, and shat upon by rabid livestock, while buzzards peck out your eyes. You said, "hey, mister. Would you mind putting me in an episode of twilight zone, where I slowly go into a psychological horror, despair and despondency, never to receive comfort from another human being? That would be great." Hey--that was you talking. Not me...

All you have to do is to agree with me, and your unforgiveable thought-crimes will be erased. Admit that your thoughts are vile, and that you are vile, and that you deserve to sit in a hot tub full of feces and vomit, and handed a large spoon, and you will escape the fate of someone peeling your skin off and forcing you into an iodone and lime juice shower.

It's a wonder that Christians have any self-esteem at all.

Maybe this isn't charitable of me. Maybe I'm making sweeping generalizations. But looking at it from my point of view as an outsider, this really is what Christianity, at its heart, seems to be.