Jesus is my homeboy

My friend wrote me an email with some questionable content and at the end of it she inserted: "I am going straight to Hell". I thought about our cavalier use of this phrase; however, collectively (I dare say), we believe that religious higher powers are as legitimate as the Ab Tronic 5000.

I wonder why it is that upon a morally questionable action or thought we always revert back to the old standby of damnation for eternity. Does this occur because from early on we are conditioned to equate this life’s no-nos with worse consequences in the supposed spiritual world? Reflecting further, does that mean that we are tenaciously clinging to a belief in hell because we so desperately want to believe that there is something more after our hearts stop pumping? And, because on some unconscious level we want some form of heaven to exist, if so facto we must believe in Hell? Or, is it just a moral pulse check, where we pause and evaluate our behaviour and deem it to be unsatisfactory against the go-to scale that Jesus, or God, or whoever, created; doing so without buying in to the superstitious mumbo jumbo?

Now that I have written a paragraph about religion every ounce of me is screaming to highlight and delete before some line is crossed. Although, I don’t really care about slighting someone’s beliefs; but rather, I feel ill informed on the subject as: A. I have never read the Bible and B. I stopped going to church as soon as it was no longer appropriate for me to make Jesus crafts in Sunday school.

Anyways, no matter if you believe or don’t, you really have to hand it to some of these quips for their staying power. It is certainly not uncommon in a moment of fury for the phrase, "What the Hell?" to escape my lips. This just a more imposing way of inquiring: "Why is this occurring?" Why does Hell carry such risqué innuendo?

Hell in a handbasket, does anyone know the origin to this phrase? I just looked it up – and actually: No, nobody knows. Where does one purchase this alleged handbasket? And, how does one travel to hell in it... it must be an awfully large basket, maybe it is one of those magical carpet bags like Mary Poppins totes -only made of asbestos so that it doesn’t burn up on contact in the fiery depths.

Why are we still using these phrases? Do they carry extra weight because they have a religious allusion and are therefore naughty? Or, have we become so flippant with these ideas that they have become devoid of meaning, such as the words gay and retard?

Religion has lodged itself in our everyday vernacular but is this symptomatic of the power it wields or the lack thereof?

I was thinking about Jesus the other day- how even if he did exist, how ridiculous it is to believe that he is some sort of deity, he is probably just some guy who was trying to get everyone to be nicer to each other. Actually, Erik Davis relates in the book, Techgnosis, that there were lots of guys spouting Jesus like material at that time... maybe he was just the one who hit it big. That's a pretty phenomenal idea, imagine if he was just some regular dude who wanted his voice heard and the message came out horribly warped like some perverse game of telephone.

You know the question: If you could have a conversation with one person living or dead, who would it be? Jesus would definately make my top 5.