A Tinker's Damn

If we must have re­lig­ion, the semi­n­al test as to the value and merit of any re­lig­ion worth its salt has to be not what you be­lieve, but what you do -- that is, how you treat your fel­low man. Yet in the thousands upon thousands of books, and bi­ll­ions upon bi­ll­ions of words that have been writt­en, par­ticular­ly about Chris­tian­ity and the bible, what per­cen­tage of these books do you think are de­voted to the only thing that co­unts -- the Gold­en Rule?

The second rea­l­ity is that if there is a God and a heav­en after our life on earth, no God who de­mands of those whom he created that in order to get to heav­en they do some­th­ing here on earth dif­ferent from lead­ing a life of the Gold­en Rule is worth spend­ing one second in heav­en with, much less etern­ity. If his main re­quire­ment for gett­ing to heav­en is not that we treat our fel­low man fair­ly and de­cent­ly, but we be born-again Chris­tians who ac­cept Jesus as our savior and that we love him more than an­yone else with all of our being, then, as in­dicated ear­li­er, who in the hell would want to spend etern­ity or even one second with some­one who is so un­believab­ly self-centered and vainglori­ous?

That type of God is not worth a tin­ker's damn.
~ from The Sense and Morality of Agnosticism by Vincent Bugliosi ~

I soo agree with the snippet above. For me, I care little what any person believes IF said beliefs don't inform actions. For example, if you tell me that love is your overriding objective, yet you treat others like dirt or worse, who the hell cares what you believe?

This is one of the prime reasons I hammer on Christianity on this blog. For all their lofty words and sentiments, the actions of far too many Christians -- particularly fundamentalist Christians -- are mean-spirited and hateful. If you can't put your love into action everyday, what good is it?