The one about Christmas Smoke

Some of you may know that I am enamored of the philosophy of Tao.  Not that it answers all the questions, of course, but because it's an icon of human perception of the universe.  Positive and Negative.  It allows for a balanced view of things.  Sitting here using the computer, I am aware that this machine performs its functions solely using combinations of positive and negative units.  It is the principle of Tao unfolding before my eyes with every stroke of the keys. 

When I was a christian, I lived with an example of this positive and negative play of forces.  They told me the Old Testament and the New Testament were both, together, the perfect word of our god.  Yet, the messages contained, both explicit and  implicit, were opposites in many ways.   They also told me that Jesus was god in the flesh and his teachings were primary.  The Book of the Gospels was paraded to great fanfare and ceremony during worship in order to underscore the preeminence of the words of Jesus over any other teaching.  Only an ordained minister could read aloud from the Gospels during worship, they were that highly regarded... in form.

But even a cursory look at the "perfect word of god" shows Jesus and the Old Testament are often at odds.  This allows for some fancy footwork on the part of those wily christians, though.  If Jesus is too tough, well, you can still obey god by appealing to the Old Testament for an easier path to walk.  If the Old Testament is too gory for your tastes, then you can claim Jesus, or better yet, you can do what christians have done for centuries, just mix the Old Testament and Jesus together in unequal portions, and you can create a watered-down version of both that on the surface looks perfectly biblical!  Turn the other cheek when it suits you, and tear your enemy a new one when that suits you.  "Keep them guessing" might be the motto inscribed over every church door.  The trouble I see these days, though, is that christians are more and more ignoring the Jesus part (except the mechanical element of human sacrifice on the cross, of course) and finding the teachings of the Old Testament preferable to the teachings of their sacrificial victim himself.  Divorce runs amok among christians even though Jesus doesn't allow it.  Tea Party christians don't want to pay their taxes even though Jesus says to pay your taxes.  Christians are often first in line to call for "nuking" the bad guys when Jesus says not to nuke the bad guys, or words to that effect.

During this time of the year, you will hear that tired old motto: Keep Christ in Christmas.  Maybe you'll hear this one, too:  Jesus is the Reason for the Season.  Both make my eyes roll involuntarily, but keep in mind that christians, and usually the most vociferous ones, are drinking their holiday punch watered down.  They make excuses for the teachings of Jesus and why he was wrong misinterpreted.  So when you hear the christians huffing and puffing about Jesus, just remind yourself that they don't care any more for Jesus than we atheists do.  It's all just Christmas smoke.