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Hail Satan! |
There's a lot of confusing and contradictory crap in the Bible, but it was pretty clear on the subject of virtue and sin. Greed, avarice, gluttony and something called vainglory are all super extra sinny turbo-sins, while faith, charity and love are the vir-chewiest of virtues.
In fact, Jesus spent so much time talking about loving your neighbours and brothers and random passers-by that quite frankly he comes across a little fruity. This is the twenty-first century; saying you love everyone will creep them out, and saying you love children will get you put on a list.
It's no longer good to be good, it's good to be rich. In this day and age the only valid reason for making charitable donations is to highlight how much you have, that you can just give some of it away and not even notice the loss.
But still, the Bible is pretty clear. Jesus did not say "And now these three remain: pride, envy and greed. But the greatest of these is greed."
Well, somebody needs to say it.
Greed is good. Vanity is a sign of high self-esteem. Envy provides valuable motivation. And the only negative aspect of gluttony is that it makes you fat, and fat people are inferior. A virtuous man is one who can afford not only to stuff his greasy jowls with every delicacy imaginable, but to have it liposuctioned out afterward.
I'm not trying to create a new dogma, I'm merely giving voice to what everyone already knows. Voluntary poverty and self-deprivation may have been the path to heaven 2000 years ago, but today that road is a freeway with no sidewalk and no bus service. The God Jesus served has either suffered a personality-altering stroke or been replaced.
The cause of the change is ineffable, but it's also immaterial. Whether God lost His heavenly throne to Satan in a poker game or just watched too many infomercials and episodes of Flip This House, this simple fact remains: morality has flipped polarity. If you want to please the new God, you need to get with the program.
Personal sacrifice and piety are out, conspicuous consumption is in. Your neighbours need to see how good you are (as measured in Mercedeses and Lexi) so that information can trickle up to God. God doesn't have time to personally check up on 6 billion people, He uses aggregators just like everyone else. (If you find this column interesting, Digg it. We're talking about my soul here.)
The Bible can still be a useful guide, you just have to take the contrarian view. Here are some simple do's and don'ts for the new millennium:
Do...
- Lie, steal, murder and commit adultery
- Practice idolatry
- Covet your neighbour's house, wife, oxen and slave(s)
- Blaspheme. God loves that shit.
Don't...
- Keep the sabbath day holy (if God wanted you to only shop 24/6, He would've done something by now)
- Honour your parents
- Try to be as big a sissy as Jesus
Now, before you get all "God hasn't changed, we've just gotten further from God," think on this--the heaven you got sent to as a reward for living a life of boredom and self-denial involved more boredom and self-denial. Personally, I'd rather go to the same afterlife as all the rock stars, druggies and nymphos, even if it means there will be lawyers there too. And if it's true that you can't take it with you, use it all now.
