Religious Amendments
Written by: Aron Brown
Text Your Teachings
From the great website of Soul Pancake comes another great creative challenge. Soul Pancake is a website for talking about life’s big questions. Users can ask their own questions or answer the ones posted by others. The space on Soul Pancake where I spend most of my time is the creative challenges under “Stuff to Chew”. This time around someone posted a real brain buster.
He called it Text Your Teachings, and the whole point of the exercise is to write amendments to your religious commandments.
It’s been a long time since God appeared as a burning bush. And as interesting as it is to see the Lord’s likeness in a grilled cheese sandwich, we haven’t found one that talks yet. So while we wait for a non-edible version of a deity to appear and clarify things, take a moment to add some more credibility to your creed:
Write three text messages (each 50 words or less) amending your religion.
My amendments took a lot of thought and I think they summarize some solutions for the problems we are facing today.
- Amendment 1: Thou shalt not consider employees a drain on your companies profits.
- Amendment 2: Thou shalt not treasure things over thoughts.
- Amendment 3: Thou shalt not argue over pointless ideals that can and never will be proven right or wrong.
I will go over my three amendments in detail in later posts (that means i’ll actually be posting), but right now I want to share with you some of my favorites from other users on Soul Pancake.
The member SoulPancake, who posted the challenge, had 2 amendments I really liked:
Amendment II: Thou shalt learn about other people’s faith without fear that I, your Lord, will cast thee into the Lake of Fire.
Amendment III: Thou shalt realize that I, your Lord, the infallible Creator of the Universe, screwed up by creating political officials. And lawyers. And lawyers who become political officials.
SoulPancake’s first amendment is my favorite of the two, because this is a problem that I notice with most religions today. It is alright to learn what other people believe. Knowing what others think is not going to change how you think and in fact it can probably help you to convert them if you are so inclined.
The second amendment speaks for itself.
Bostonheartache had one really good amendment:
My mind will not be narrowed by religion but opened by wonder.
This is another problem religious people are facing today. Children are being spoon fed their beliefs from the moment they can speak, and in many cases this is impeding their ability to think for themselves. Just think back to Christopher Columbus, even when their was scientific evidence to support the theory that the world was round the church and its followers refused to believe it. Sir Isaac Newton was shunned by the community when he came up with the theory of gravity, because people refused to renounce their belief that God kept us from falling off the earth. If you want to believe in God keep in mind one simple fact: he gave us brains.
TonyBeel added an amendment that would improve education:
II: Thou shalt always remember that we are more responsible for the education of the young than the teachers are.
Teachers have a job, and that job is to teach kids math, english, science, and history. Parents have a job, and that job is to teach their kids morals, independence, and respect. We need to stop blaming the teachers for our own faults.
Troyehall had some advice for those of us that cant think for ourselves:
Amendment I: Thou shalt not care with whom thy neighbor sleeps, as long as it is not with whom you sleep.
Amendment II: Thou shalt finally reconcile your thoughts on free will and fate, and pick one (or have it picked for you).
I agree, we need to stop worry about what other people are doing and focus on our own problems. We need to make up our minds, and stand up for what we believe otherwise the important decisions are going to be made by others without us even having a say.
Livelarg points out the hypocrites:
Amendment I: Read the WHOLE Bible, not just the parts that let you look down on others.
Amendment II: Don’t call yourself a Christian, unless you at least TRY to follow my commandments
Do I really need to say anything about these? Next time you see someone that breaks these amendments set them straight. We need to get paste the idea that we are unable to think for ourselves. Make your own decisions and don’t be afraid of speaking your mind, just don’t judge others when they do the same.
Amendment: Forget your religion, remember your humanity.
Amendment: God is dead, we have killed him.
Amendment: Love your family, for that love is stronger than any hallucination’s love.