Thought Crimes and Christianity

By Shaolin ~

When I dumped the belief in God and subsequently the belief in Jesus, I began to revisit the things he supposedly said in the gospels. I realized he said some bizarrely stupid things. His rule on adultery is in my top five list. Jesus, the “greatest teacher” offers nothing educational about human sexuality except this ridiculous rule:

“If any makes looks upon a women lustfully, he has committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

Adultery is defined as, “voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and someone other than his or her spouse.” According to Jewish law, adultery is a capital crime and calls for the death of both parties. Jesus upheld the whole law. So if a man THINKS about having sex with a married woman, he has sinned against God and is to be punished. Am I interpreting it correctly?

How is such a rule enforced? How would anyone (but God allegedly) know what you’re thinking, unless you’re stupid enough to tell someone, as if it was their business? Even if it applied only to married individuals, what actual harm does it do to imagine having sex? The typical fundy will probably say, “It does harm to God.” Really? How? If you can harm or hurt the feelings of a god by just thinking of something, then your God is a real fucking wimp.

Here’s the other part of the absurdity. If you apply thought criminality to adultery, then you must apply it to other acts across the board. Like stealing. Or running someone down with your car. Anything you think about doing, according to Jesus’ logic, you’ve actually done it. So you should be punished. Put in jail. Just for thinking about it. God did it. He destroyed humanity in a flood because “every inclination of their heart was only evil continually”. Those evil, EVIL babies just thought about doing bad shit or had the potential to do bad shit! And after all that death, nothing changed.

The Christian may play the “Jesus paid our penalty” card. Here’s why it fails. If thinking about it is such a “sin”, then what the hell is temptation? Isn’t temptation defined as the thought/desire to do the act? According to the teaching, temptation is not sin. Jesus was tempted - in fact “tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin”, according to Hebrews. Emphasis on “in all points”, meaning in every way, suggesting that if Jesus could be hungry.......:then he could be HORNY! So isn’t Jesus condemning himself by his own words? How interesting is James 1:14:

“But each person is tempted when he is dragged away by their own evil desire (lust) and enticed.......”

According to your book, Christians, your savior had evil desire. The temptation in the wilderness? He wasn’t tempted to lust (as I was always told). He straight up LUSTED! He might as well have done those things, if thinking is the same as doing.....in your heart. God looks at the heart, doesn’t he? So Jesus wasn’t sinless, and wasn’t qualified to save anybody.

Still another problem. Let’s assume this creator God exists. According to the Christian worldview, God gave us sexual desire. Is Jesus, who is God (if you subscribe to the trinity) now condemning us for the way HE made us? It’s simply stupid. Why won’t Jesus just explain this shit to us? Oh yeah. Because he doesn’t exist. Hey, Jesus. In case you do exist, here’s a more sensible rule: Look, but don’t touch, young man - except by two consenting adults.

By the way. Why just the men in this verse? Do women not fantasize? How can any man with hormones who likes women (married or single) not think about sex......ever? When vision combines with our sex drive and the natural need for gratification, how can we not think about sex? Was Jesus that clueless about human sexuality? Or are those the words of some proto-orthodox church leader of the the time who saw sex as something dirty and evil (for everybody except himself, because he’s God’s special guy!)? Probably. Because that’s what people do with literature. Put their own ideas and beliefs into the mouth of a well known person. Taken as God’s law over generations, it pulls young impressionable Christian men into a tormenting guilt cycle, leading them to feel defeated, constantly condemning and hating themselves, begging for forgiveness from an imaginary God who sees their thoughts and is displeased. It leads a young man to suppress his natural sexuality in shame while privately “struggling with impure thoughts (Christian-ese for watching porn and masturbating). It is THE go-to verse for pastors to keep young men compliant, while they spout meaningless sanctimonious platitudes like “Submit those thoughts to the lordship of Christ. Keep God’s temple holy. Practice the presence of God.” Then in the name of “accountability to one another” you have let others know about your “struggle” and participate in intercessory prayer in order to effectively “pull down Satan’s stronghold in your mind”. The shame made me suicidal. But that “victory” that was promised never comes, because HELLO!!, your sexuality is who you are. Let’s be real. Self-pleasure reduces stress. Everybody does it. It’s a form of self-nurturing. Die to self my ass.

Took me many years to learn that my sexuality is nothing to be ashamed of. That true victory is being comfortable with expressing who I am without being harmful, unfair or disruptive to others. I’m glad to be out of that mind-fucking theology.

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