Jesusman

I went to watch Superman Returns last night at the local cinema. I am a sucker for superhero movies, although as superheroes go, Superman is definitely the least interesting in every single way. He's an alien who possesses every single superpower conceivable. He can do anything - he can erase a woman's memory with a kiss, he can fly at immeasurable speeds. He's completely impervious. For Pete's sake, in this movie he stopped a bullet with his eyeball. As in, the bullet hit his eyeball and just bounced off. And he didn't even flinch! Nothing can ever get to him (except for kryptonite, of course - which is even more boring because you know that nothing bad can happen until Lex whips out a green crystal). Although, in Superman Returns, *SPOILER ALERT* somehow Superman managed to launch an entire continent of kryptonite, which he couldn't even land on without losing all his powers, into outer space.

I really liked Superman as a kid. But I found Superman to be really... annoyingly... smug... in this movie. He's so convinced of his own greatness and goodness. His only problem is Lois Lane can't see that Clark Kent is really him. I mean, why any man, much less Superman, would want to be with a woman who doesn't recognize him just because he put on glasses and changed his clothes is beyond me anyway. So this Superman got on my nerves a bit, to tell the truth. I much prefer Batman. He's just so much more bad-ass.

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The real reason I’m writing about Superman is because of the really obvious Jesus parallel in this movie. Which got me thinking about Jesus in general. Having been raised in a really fundamental Christian religion, I often find myself struggling with my current agnosticism/atheism. I want to believe in God and Jesus and everything, because in a certain way, I think I was a much better person when I was going to church. I was a much happier and less cynical person and I volunteered a lot more than I do now, which is… not at all in a really long time. (Last year I read an article in Time or New York or something that said people who say that they are generally really happy are the people who also say they believe in God and are active at church. The article posited that it might be a function of being part of a strong community in a world that has become much more individualistic and not necessarily because those persons feel like they have the answers to those big questions, you know, like “Why are we here?” “What is the point of life?” etc etc., but, uh, yeah.)

Anyway. If there is a God, and God knows everything, then God should know how jaded and skeptical humankind would become. He would know how cynical the world would be. He would know how disenchanted people would become with religion and the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent God who sat around while the world that he supposedly loved so much he gave his Son for went all to shit. (All to shit: endless conflict in the Middle East, AIDS in Africa, child soldiers, starving people, homeless people, suicide bombers, drug trafficking, child trafficking, sex-worker trafficking, catastrophic hurricanes and tsunamis, polar bears drowning because of melting polar ice, increasing size and number of dead zones in our oceans, etc.)

Right, so God gave his Son to the world because he knew the world would go to shit and people would need a savior. And all you have to do to be saved is have faith in Jesus, right? And since God is love and he loves us he would want as many of us as possible to become saved, right?

So then, the real question is, if to be saved you have to have faith in Jesus, then why did God make it so hard for us to believe in Jesus? Why does Jesus have to be such an invisible savior, if he really is our savior? Why can’t he be more like Superman, swooping around in a really loud outfit that is embarassingly tight in the nether region, taking an obvious and active interest in human affairs, preventing disasters, and saving children and women everywhere? Then it would be impossible for anyone not to believe in Jesus, and everyone would be saved, which is what God wants, right? So… why?

And please don’t tell me that I’m committing a sin by questioning God. I mean, if you believe that, then you probably believe God created me just the way I am, which means he made me so that I would question him… if questioning God is a commission of a sin, he shouldn’t have created the ability to question him in me! Unless he just wants to psyche me out and make it hard to not commit sins against him, which means he’s not all that loving, after all…

Ahem. I feel slightly blasphemous. Hopefully I won’t die in my sleep tonight.

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Another movie I watched this week: The Proposition. If you want to watch a really awesome movie, check it out at your local cinema!

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Julie is being so mean. She has decided to get rid of Miso. And instead of giving Miso to me, who already loves her and is loved by her, she wants to sell Miso to some stranger. I told her I would buy Miso if money was the issue but she won’t even sell her to me! She keeps insisting that I don’t know what it’s like to have a dog and I will be too busy to take care of Miso once I start working. Which I really resent because HELLO, I HAD a dog for fourteen years! I grew up with a dog! I know MUCH more about taking care of a dog than she does, which admittedly doesn’t mean much. She and my brother didn’t even realize that Miso was in heat. And, I would take EXCELLENT care of Miso. I have been wanting a dog for the past two years, ever since I got over the passing of Sandy, my old dog, but I’ve been waiting until I graduated law school because I knew I wouldn’t be able to take care of a dog while in law school. And now I’ve graduated, and I love Miso, and Julie wants to get rid of her because she’s just had surgery and she’s peeing over her carpets, but she won’t give her to me because she knows what’s best for me and that I won’t want the responsibility of a dog. UGH. I am so pissed.

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OH MY GOD. I love my mom, I really do. But nobody can drive me as crazy as her. She became a fundamental Christian at the age of 28. She's constantly telling me how she used to be just like me, that she used to be into politics and social affairs and liked to study (and HELLO, I DON'T like to study, I just have to study for the stupid bar exam) and thought her friends were so important, just like me, but when she turned 28 she realized how empty and insipid everything was and found Jesus. So she's positive that I will undergo a similar metamorphosis when I turn 28 and she's always SIGHING IN MY FUCKING EAR about it. It's SO frustrating. And it really sucks to feel like my mom is just waiting, waiting, waiting, and hoping, hoping, hoping, for me to change. I feel horrible yelling at her but sometimes it's just impossible. She is the only person who can make me feel seethingly angry, then suicidally sorry for her, and also majorly guilty, all in the span of five minutes.