Videos: Re: "you'll never feel oneness with another person"

Re: "you'll never feel oneness with another person"

14 July 2009

YouTube user Bowhanded: This is a response to "Biblical origin of marriage". You have to understand, it was in the Bible, in the beginning, that was between a man and a woman: one flesh, oneness. You can't have that with another man. So you can be as gay as you want, you'll never feel oneness with another person. So, that's your choice if you want to believe the Bible or not. Your damnation.

ZJ: Well, can I be a smug asshole for a moment here? I think it would be appropriate. Sorry I don't have the camera pointed upward, I know that kind of takes away from the whole "talking down to someone" effect.

Now, if you insist on believing that the first man was created by a god blowing on some dirt, and the first woman was created by removing one of that guy's ribs, and the adventures of Dirtman and Ribwoman actually happened, that's your choice. And I'm not going to stop you. But if you expect anyone to take you seriously when you try to tell us these stories have anything to offer in the way of moral guidance, or indeed any connection to reality at all, you've got another thing coming.

Pretending that bronze-age tribesmen discovered the final truth regarding the origins of our world, while also outlining the only correct ethics for living in this world, and disregarding any progress we've made in these fields since then, is not only unfounded, but laughable.

If this is the basis for your understanding of where we came from, where we're going, and what we should do in the meantime, it certainly makes sense that your primitive and narrow view of the world keeps you from recognizing the true emotional depth of a variety of human relationships. Your crude imposition of gender restrictions on love, which has no regard for your artificial boundaries, indicates that this just isn't something you can relate to. And considering your attitude, I wouldn't be surprised if you never experience the indescribable oneness you speak of so casually—as if you know anything about it.

Here's what you can look forward to: At some point in the distant future, you will reach the end of your life. And as you lie there, well aware that your essential bodily functions are winding down, you look back on the life you've led, and you're confident that you've carried out your godly duty by telling people that—

Bowhanded: Even if you do get "married" legally, even if they do approve it, which I hope they don't, then you still won't be really married.

ZJ: Truly, you've been a paragon of Christian values. And as the darkness closes in around you, you're certain that this is just a prelude to being taken to meet your heavenly father. And yet, as the world slips out of sight for the last time, the God you've been waiting for fails to make an appearance. Instead, you find yourself staring into an endless void. There's nobody here, and there's nowhere for you to go.

And in that moment, your final moment, you realize that you've wasted your life, your only life, in the service of ancient myth and superstition, denying yourself and others everything that makes life worth living.

It was all for nothing.

And the abject horror of this realization is the last thing you experience as you plunge into the abyss, your very existence fades away, and your life is over.

Does that qualify as damnation? I think it comes pretty close.

But by all means, keep pretending that scientific consensus supports creationism, and that mitochondrial Eve has anything to do with the biblical Eve, and that Pascal's Wager has ever been a coherent and compelling argument—as if there's only one religion.

Certainly, you still have plenty of time to renounce these delusions and embrace reality. But you've made it quite clear you'd rather march into oblivion, so blinded by the mirage of an afterlife that you'll miss all the very real joys of this life.

But that's your choice, and I'm not going to stop you. You deserve it.

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