These Two Things are Not Alike

I believe in karma and reincarnation. I grew up in the Deep South -- aka the Bible Belt -- which is a place with so many Christians that Christian terminology and manners shape the local culture.

I briefly attended church in my twenties while trying to "find my people" or whatever and that wasn't my cup of tea. Too many people were in church to FEEL morally superior to people NOT in church and not actually there to take moral instruction.

I realize the following does NOT apply to ALL Christians, but in a nutshell this is what I believe, what too many Christians seem to be all about and why I am not a fan of the religion.

1. Karma and reincarnation are about the idea that YOU are responsible for your actions and for the consequences of your actions, so don't be an asshole because if you are it will come back to you.

1. Christianity -- or at least some Christians -- trends towards "Your sins will be forgiven if you polish pews with your ass frequently enough and we don't care how you behave because 2000 years ago we crucified someone so he could die for your sins and you get a get out of jail free card."

2. Karma and reincarnation is a philosophy for trying to understand yourself, how you got to the situation you are in, what YOU need to do to fix it and how to try to sort out how to live right.

2. Far too many Christians are focused on one and only one metric: How do I get into "heaven" for all eternity in spite of making zero effort to live right? How do I get that get out of hell free card and go to heaven because Jesus, the ultimate whipping boy, already died for everyone's sins?

I don't believe in heaven as a place you go to. I think both heaven and hell are words that describe a STATE of being and not someplace you go for all eternity after THIS life ends.

I do community development work. I think a primary goal of religion generally is to help people live right so they can be part of a functional community.

Community is not something that just happens and it's not defined by merely having a group of people to which you nominally belong.

A sense of community is like a living organism where the cells of the creature in question are individual people. It CANNOT exist if you don't teach everyone in the community what the expected rules of behavior are and ENFORCE those rules to make life here on planet Earth better and NOT for some nebulous promise of a so-called afterlife.

I don't believe in that. I believe in reincarnation. I believe we come back and there is no eternal heaven or hell.

Individuals who either CANNOT or WILL NOT follow the rules and behave decently are a cancer upon the community and must be cut out in some fashion for the health of the community.

I'm pro death sentence. My goal is a better world in the here and now, not personal salvation for the souls of every depraved asshole who wants to FEEL like it's not their fault and they can't help it and they want to go to heaven anyway.

Some people are not fixable and are not owed "compassion" by everyone else. I do not believe in pouring resources into a bottomless pit on the theory that life should be some sort of "no child left behind program" no matter how badly individuals choose to behave.

It's not easy to achieve a sense of community. 

Sometimes the rules in place are broken, whether intentionally (Jim Crow laws) or incidentally (rich and powerful politicians NOT understanding what life is like for most of the people and coming up with stupid policies that actively undermine the intended goal).

But life is better if you are shooting for that and coming closer to it than not.

So-called "compassion" for monsters is not only not a part of my ethos, it actively undermines my goals and is counter to my values. My compassion is for their victims.