PROFOUND REVELATIONS

Tales oF the Absurd, Original Satire, Politics, Religion & News Commentary

Category: Religion Page 1 of 4

All God’s Children Go To Heaven, Amen!

I am going to state right off the bat, that all of you and I are going to heaven and there is nothing we can do about God’s unrelenting, unconditional love.

Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray for my soul to keep, Angels, watch me through the night, and wake me with the morning light. Amen”.

There’s nothing in there about hell, eternal damnation, the rapture, gnashing of teeth, or anything else like that. At least the children get it.

Many of you may have grown up in church reciting the Sinners’ Prayer right? It went like this:

Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior”.

So now, all of a sudden we are sinners? Did you know that this prayer does not exist in the Bible? It’ doesn’t. Don’t believe me, take a look for yourself, I can wait…….

So now, to get into heaven you have to just recite this prayer and you’re in. That’s all there is to it. This seems easy right? Wrong. And furthermore, it’s totally unnecessary.

Now most everyone has recited the Lords Prayer which “is in the Bible”, in the New Testament (Matt 6: 9-13).

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever”. Amen.

Once again nothing here about hell, eternal damnation, the rapture, gnashing of teeth, eternal fire, Etc. Nothing, Nada, Nyet, Nope, well you get the idea.

We need to sort these issues out one by one, then you can easily research them for yourselves.

Prayer.

As we’ve already seen, the Children’s prayer, and the sinners prayer, are not even the Bible or holy scriptures. The Lords Prayer as noted in Matthew was more of a suggestion when people asked how do we pray?

The first and most obvious question is; When we pray, is that for us? or is it for God? Think about that?

This is actually a very serious question. You see, right before the verse with the Lords Prayer in Matthew, it says in Matt 6: 8 – “Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him”.

So, in essence, God knows what you need even before you ask for it. This makes perfect sense as if God is all-powerful, and all-knowing, as we have been lead to believe that God already knows what we need, and want, even before we form the thought. I would propose that prayer is for us, and not God. For me, my prayers are more of a stream of consciousness, and even then is mostly a prayer of thanks, as the old song goes, “Thank you Lord for thinking about me, I’m alive and doing fine”.

The Rapture

The entire idea of “The Rapture” was developed by John Darby in 1830, who heard it from a young girl’s dream. Darby did not get any traction with his ideas in the UK where he was from, but he found fertile ground for his ideas in America several years later.

We went over 1,500 years in Christianity without this ridiculous notion, and everything was just fine. Once again this idea is an artificial construct of organized/institutionalized religion, especially the evangelical and fundamentalist branches of Christianity.

Nobody is going to suddenly disappear or “be raptured” now or ever, as once again,

this entire concept was “not” born from biblical scriptures.

Hell and Eternal Torment

This is another biggie. This entire concept actually came about during the early 1500’s. Although, The Christian church has always held three different views of hell. Eternal suffering (Eternal hell and suffering), Annihilation (those that die without Christ are doomed to a period of suffering in hell until their sins Are atoned for), and Universal Reconciliation (God saved all mankind, even non-believers).

For the first several hundred years of Christianity, the “Universal Reconciliation” was the dominant view. But, evidently, this was too easy, so organized religion had to invent something that had more means of control. Evidently by this measure if you don’t believe in the right thing, whatever that might be then you are damned for all eternity to hell.

Wow! This view certainly doe’s not seem like a kind, and loving, God does it. But on an even deeper level, the obvious question is why? What would be the purpose of creating people, giving them “free will” and then damning them to an eternity in hell, when God knew that you were going to be this way? Seriously why? Did you know that there are over two hundred Christian denominations in the United States alone, how are we supposed to know which is the right way and which is the wrong way? Virtually all of them state something to the fact that, “theirs” is the right path, and all the others are not.

This of course brings up the really, really, thorny paradox of what happened to all the billions who lived and died before the time of Jesus? Or all the people in other parts of the world who never heard of Jesus or Christianity. Also, let’s not forget all the religions that existed, and still exist today, that was around before Jesus or Christianity? Are all those untold billions also doomed to eternal suffering as well? Personally, I think not. As on the face of this entire argument or concept, this is just absurd.

Organized Religion makes stuff up that is not backed by scripture.

There is a lot of stuff that was just plain made up by organized religion that doe’s not match up to any scripture. This is part of the dogma, or rituals, of a particular organized religion. This is especially true with evangelical and fundamentalist branches of the Christian religion.

There is a lot of misguided, just plain wrong, or toxic theology out there. “Snake handling” is one such belief. In the NT, in the Gospel of  Mark, Chapter 16:18 is says: They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover”.

Seriously, these misguided pastors get bit by rattlesnakes, and even die every so often because of this particular misreading of scripture Didn’t God also give us intelligence and wisdom to do the right things? Maybe the Disciple Mark was negligent in not stating “do not try this at home” or “only to be attempted by trained professionals”.

I saw an entire list from the evangelical world of stuff not to do which included: Selfishness, witchcraft, incest, drunkenness, false accuser, lust, stealing, swearing, unbelief, envy, lying, hating parents, filthy talk, gay, whisperer, back biter, hypocrisy, shacking, worshiping false Gods, cheating, hater of God, theft, whore mongering, having an affair, rock roll, heavy metal music, etc.

Wow! This is clearly a long list and only a fraction of them were mentioned in the scriptures. The only explanation for all of these things is a means of control by the church to its parishioners. There are clearly a lot more here than “The Ten Commandments” Who made up all the rest? We do know that is was certainly not God.

There are some branches of American Christianity where you have to ask your Pastor for permission to marry the person that you love and want to spend the rest of your life with. Seriously, Who is the Pastor to decide who should and should not marry? Isn’t this elevating Pastors to the level of God? I mean certainly, it’s perfectly OK, to have premarital counseling with your Pastor if that is what you think you may need, But for you to have to get his or her blessing? I think not.

Another thing to be really leery of is if someone approaches you, and says; “God told me to tell you_________?  You can be sure that in a lot of cases they are full of shit, or misguided in their thinking, especially, if this is not what God is telling you. Always, trust that small still voice inside of you to provide the right answer to you when you need it the most.

God’s Wrath in the OT

We have all read or heard the stories of God’s wrath, genocide, and his killing off of entire towns of men, women, children, and babies.

Let’s set one thing clear right off the bat. The last chapter of the Old Testament (OT) was written roughly about 415 years before the birth of Jesus.

To be perfectly clear, the authors of the OT had never spoken to God, had never seen God, and as a conquered, and enslaved peoples they imagined a God that would come down and slay their enemies, and everyone else who had any part in enslaving them. They used a lot of hyperbole, which was common at the time to describe how they wanted God to perform the ultimate retribution on their collective enemies. Doe’s this sound like a kind and loving God? I think not. Jesus was born over 400 years later and set the record straight.

Weaponizing Scripture

Anytime anyone, Pastors, family, friends, etc. start quoting scripture by stringing together old and new testament scriptures in new and unique ways is not quoting scripture. They are creating their own unique theology, which frankly is dead wrong and not anything Jesus said or did.

The proper way to read scripture is to read the entire chapter from beginning to end. You also have to keep in mind, three things in particular:

Time: The time it was written and the author’s understanding of the world at the time it was written.

Context: What is the context in which it was written. An example of this is all the letters that Paul wrote where he was talking to “particular churches” in Corinth, Rome, Ephesians, etc., and was discussing problems and issues that were unique to them. This does not necessarily apply to us now.

Culture: What was the culture at the time and what did they believe?

By keeping these three things in mind we can gain a far better understanding of what the authors of the Bible were trying to tell us. Also, it is critically important to not try to place our 21st century way of thinking on first and second-century man. We certainly have a far greater understanding of things than 1st and 2nd-century man did so let’s try to keep that in mind.

Another example is tithing to the church. Unless you are part of the Priestly Tribe as one of the twelve tribes of Isreal, this doe’s not apply to you. Read the scriptures on tithing, and you will see what I mean.

Inerrancy in the Bible

Essentially there are a few different branches of Christianity that believe that the Bible was inspired by God, and is the perfect word and intent of God.

God di not write a single word of the Bible! The Bible was written by men who were inspired by God, several years after the fact, that is an entirely different thing. The Bible as we know it is full of contradictions and errors as man is not perfect, and can only write about what they know, or think they know about God. We already know that there are loads of errors in the Bible both intentional and unintentional.

How did I get here?

I went to a Methodist church when I was a teenager, and participated in the youth group. If truth be told, I was more interested in the girls than any sort of religion. I did all the usual stuff including testimonies, baptism, etc.

I became really disillusioned after that. Especially, trying to understand how God allowed all that suffering and did absolutely nothing about it. This is how I was taught and was pretty mainstream thinking at the time… I could not accept a cruel God like that. After all, if God was an asshole like that and killed innocent women, children, and babies, and would sentence you to hell for eternity just for believing or not believing the right thing then I wanted no part of God. After all, what did I have to lose right? Nobody could or would answer my questions.

I became really disgusted and became a seriously intense Atheist after that for the next 45 years, or so. The funny thing is I was really happy being an Atheist. Until I met my current wife.

My wife Patria, is an ordained Minister (I was not aware of it at the time when we met) She never, ever, tried to convert me which for me is the ultimate in belief and Christian values, but I digress. Both of my wife’s parents were Pastors, as are her brother, and sisters, kind of a family affair. You get the idea.

The only thing that my wife used to tell me all the time was, God, is love. That’s it. Period, Full Stop! I thought about this for quite some time. If God was only “unconditional love” why did all this stuff keep happening? And what kind of God would kill babies, women and children, and the like. I could not, and would not, accept this as reality. I mean what did I have to lose by not believing, as I would end up in hell either way. So, to make a long story short, I was fairly content being where I was at.

So, as any good husband, I used to buy these books on theology for my wife, and I still do. One day I bought this book by Keith Giles, titled; “Jesus Unbound, Liberating the word of God from the Bible”. I started flipping through it and found I couldn’t put it down. That book literally changed my life!

I never even considered the fact that you could separate religion from the Bible, and follow Jesus in a Christ-concentric relationship and belief system. Without the confines of religion. This was a game-changer for me.

Who would have ever thought that you can follow Jesus without the confines of religion, and actually commune with God directly without the filter of religion?

I’ve never looked back since that day when I mostly read the book Jesus Unbound in a little over one afternoon. Wow! This is amazing, and really heady stuff. I soon found other authors/theologians who helped me solidify my beliefs in God. And all that all means.

I found out right away that organized religion did not have the answer for me. The answer I was looking for was right there all along, I just had never considered it before. I did not need or want religion, I only needed a “direct” relationship with Christ without the filter of religion and I found it at last.

Sure, there are a lot of people that do not, and will not agree with me. You know what, that’s OK too. We all need to find our own way and I believe that God considers intent, so when we fail, we can just pick ourselves back up and try, try again. Personally, I find it liberating to be free of the bonds of religion in my relationship with God.

The Many Pathways To God

I have come to believe that there are many, many pathways leading to God. God does not care what religion you subscribe to, or no religion, or belief at all. These pathways all represent a different path to the divine understanding of God. Some paths are fairly straight and narrow, some pathways meander around and back again before continuing on again. It’s our choice which path we choose.

Remember, God does not judge us! We judge ourselves. All God’s children go to heaven, and there is nothing in God’s unconditional love that can change that. Yes, you are going to heaven, as is your dog or cat as well. We have nothing to fear.

God made sure of that.

This song has always been very inspiring to me. I hope that you find it inspiring as well.

 

As Always,

I Am,

Tom Dye, The Safety Guy.

 

 

If you have any comments please feel to leave a comment below, Please be respectful to me and others. We are all seekers here..

 

References:

(Obviously, I need to give credit where credit is due to these brilliant scholars….

  1. Keith Giles; Jesus Unbound, Liberating the word of God from the Bible
  2. Keith Giles; Jesus Undefeated, Condemning the false doctrine of eternal torment
  3. Keith Giles; Jusus Unforsaken, Substituting Divine Wrath with Unrelenting Love
  4. Keith Giles; Jesus Unveiled, Forsaking Church as we know it for Ekklesia as God intended
  5. Jesus Unexpected, Ending the End Times to become the second coming
  6. Derek Flood; Disarming Scripture
  7. Barbara Brown Taylor – Holy Envy, Finding God in the faith of others
  8. Barbara Brown Taylor – Learning to walk in the dark
  9. Rachel Held Evens – Inspired
  10. A More ChristLike God – Brad Jersek
  11. How Jesus Became God – Bart D Ehrman
  12. I saw Satan fall like lightning – Rene Girard
  13. The New Oxford Annotated Bible
  14. The New Testament (a new translation) by David Bently Hart
  15. Aramaic to English translation of the New Testament

 

 

 

What Is My Purpose In Life?

I believe that organized religion puts way too much burden on people with questions like; What is my purpose? What is my calling? At least for me, Just pondering these types of questions is a really weighty endeavor, and frankly, one that I don’t need to worry about. Life is hard enough with the COVID19 pandemic raging, social distancing, facemasks, and all that goes with it

For the sake of transparency, I will say that I do have a serious distrust of “church” and “religion”. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great for others, just not for me. I prefer a more direct approach. I am, a follower of Jesus, in a Christcentric relationship with God, and for me, I don’t want or need a filter between me, and God.

Recently, I have had a revelation that our purpose or calling in life is strictly transactional,  it does not have to be grand, or glamorous, or anything like that, and in most cases, it’s not.

Consider this, one day about a year ago my wife, Patria came home and told me about an older man who was homeless, and living outside of an auto mechanics shop that we both know. It was cold then as well. I knew what I had to do right then…I did not even think about it, I just acted right away.  As soon as she told me about him, I immediately went into our room, pulled out a large soft-sided suitcase thingy, and filled it with clothes, sweatshirts, tee shirts, jeans, underwear, socks, shoes, toiletries, etc. I stuffed it. (you get the idea).

My wife and I, also know a woman, a good friend who has a foundation to help the homeless, the problem is it takes a few days to get the help and services that Steve (That’s his name) would need, She was going to go over there and talk to him, as well as bring him some food and water, and my wife was going to meet her there as well.

I handed her the bag and asked her to give it to him, and off she went. Now, I believe that at “that moment” that was my purpose or calling in life. Sure it was a small thing for me, as I have lots of clothes and the money to buy them and Steve basically had nothing and was living outside. This kind of thing has happened in my life several times and I am sure that similar things have happened to you as well.

How about that time that you saw the homeless man out in the cold and you bought him/her a hamburger and a hot coffee? At that monent, that was your purpose.

Or lastly, how about that time you saw the woman in front of you in line at the grocery store struggling to count change to buy her groceries and you stepped up and told the cashier, I got this? That was your purpose as well.

Now, when you ask yourself what is my calling? It’s basically as Jesus said to love one another as we love ourselves. If your actions would contribute to someones’ well being, shows compassion, and mercy, then you know that is exactly what God is calling you to do, right now.

So, if you think about it, if our calling is transactional then our job is just to look, listen, and answer the call.

As Always,

I am, Tom Dye, The Safety Guy

Divine Intervention

Divine Intervention

Seriously, this actually happened to me. As you may have already heard. Believe it or not, I actually did beat Jesus at tournament darts! Yes, you read it correctly, I mean, “That Jesus”, The Son of God, you know, the famous guy with the long brown hair, well groomed beard and mustache, centuries ago, they even wrote a world wide best seller all about him. I won the $25,000 cash prize, and I obviously lived to tell you about it.

I know, you heard all about this on the news, Facebook, as well as all over the internet. Literally, all the local television networks as well as the cable news channels covered it, not to mention NPR and talk radio This was the biggest thing that ever happened in the small town of Brooksville, Florida and eveyone wanted in on it. But, I really wanted you to hear it straight from me, after-all, I was there, and this is my story.

But first let me give you a little background…..

Let me tell you, I really, really, love playing darts, I live to play darts, I have been playing darts for as long as I can remember. After what seemed like a lifetime or two, I actually got to be pretty good, I even started to make some real money at it, not quite enough to pay off my monthly beer tab, but pretty damn close. Eventually, I started entering a few serious dart tournaments and I started winning.

This is where the real story begins…..

You see, I actually made it through to the final qualifying rounds of the, 23rd Annual Brooksville Invitational Darts Tournament. I really felt that I had a decent shot at winning the big $25,000.00 cash prize for first place. I’ve always dreamed of winning one of those really big over-sized checks presented to me, just like you see on TV.

I had been practicing my game diligently every day for months. If you don’t believe me, just check out the wall of my living room, all around my semi-regulation tournament dartboard, it has the battle scars to prove it. You know what I am talking about, all those little holes in the wall around the dart-board from all the missed shots.

The big tournament was finally approaching, I actually felt pretty damn good, I hadn’t made a new hole in the living room wall for quite some time, and my game had been spot on for several weeks, through round after qualifying round.

Unbelievably, I was one of the final twenty contestants. The tournament qualifying rounds started off with well over one hundred fifty contestants, now the finals were finally here. This was the do or die moment. Now, there were only twenty of us left standing.

I can’t really explain it but for the last few days leading up to the tournament, I just knew I was going to win. I felt pretty good, I could feel it, not only that, I could actually taste it. In a few hours the big prize money was going to be mine, I was already planning on how I was going to spend my new found windfall. I had never felt this confident or self assured in my entire life.

No matter how confident I felt, I still wasn’t taking any chances. The night before the big tournament, I had a couple of beers, well to be honest it was more like several beers. I wasn’t skimping, I was drinking my favorite beer, Yuengling Lager, in the can of course. You see, I am very discerning when it comes to beer. I wanted to make damn sure that I looked and felt my very best for the big tournament the next day, so I drank my beer and stayed up late before stumbling off to bed.

The day of the tournament was finally here and for some strange reason I woke up really, really, early, I think it was some stupidly early hour like 9:30 in the morning. I mean seriously, who gets up at 9:30 in the morning, on a freaking SATURDAY anyway? I’ll tell you, maybe other losers, but not me.

Oh well, I figured that I might as well get up and get ready. I sh**, showered and shaved and of course had another beer, after-all, it had to be after 12:00 noon somewhere on the planet right?

I put on my favorite black denim jeans, black tee shirt, my lucky black Nehru jacket and of course my favorite red sneakers. I said goodbye to my dog Homer, locked the door behind me and off I went.

I strolled down to the tournament really early, signed-in, and hit the bar and grabbed a beer. As I sat at the bar eyeing the final competitors, I actually allowed myself to dream about all the things I would do, with all that money; after all, I just knew I was going to win. I could feel it in every fiber of my being.

Suddenly, I started hearing this rhythmic chanting from near the front door, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, everybody in the bar turned and started staring towards the door and craning their necks to see what the hell was going on. People even started standing on their chairs and tables to get better look. The chanting continued – Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

There’s a big commotion and the crowd parts just like the Red Sea and there he was. Jesus himself, gliding towards the sign-in table: Jesus signs in. A million thoughts start running through my head, How in the hell am I going to possibly beat Jesus at darts? …What doe’s Jesus need the $25,000.00 prize money for anyway? …Did Jesus invent darts? …Maybe, I wouldn’t want to win, maybe, just maybe, Jesus is a sore loser and might just turn me into a pillar of salt, or something worse.

If I won, did that mean I was more powerful than the Son of God? Jesus, slowly turns, looks up and looks straight at me, Jesus stands up, and points to his solid gold custom dart case. The case is engraved with angels and trumpets, all heralding the power, and glory of God.

At that exact moment, I realized that my dream of winning the $25,000.00 prize money was now totally shattered. God, Wy are you doing this to me? I raged that this was so not fair. Not to mention the fact, I certainly hoped that Jesus didn’t remember me, because I had a serious beef with this dude.

You see a couple of months ago, God “smited” me and I was still really, really, unhappy about that. It all started when I casually made one of those off the cuff comments to my fiancee that I would really like to stop smoking one day.

That was a serious mistake on my part…

You see, at the time I didn’t know that my fiancee, Patria, has a direct pipeline to God, but now, I am 100% certain that she does, I’m not kidding, she really does.

You see, several months ago, I suddenly got really, really, sick. I was so sick that if I took one hit off a cigarette I would cough my lungs out for twenty to thirty minutes. It was devastating to me especially because I really enjoyed smoking. I know it’s not popular but I really liked smoking my 305’s.

A short time later, in my delirium, with a high fever and feeling like I would die at any moment, I asked Patria, “why is this happening to me”? Patria casually mentioned that she had recently prayed to God to give me the strength to stop smoking. WHAT??? Well evidently, God listened to her prayer. Instead of giving me the strength to stop smoking, he decided to smite me just for the fun of it, God made me suffer to the maximum extent possible! That definitely wasent cool of God to do that to me, and I was still really pissed off about it.

But that’s a story for another time.

Jesus glides up to the bar, just opposite from me, dressed in his usual long robes, and really cool, hand-made sandals on his feet. Jesus’s long flowing brown hair is perfect, and shiny. I thought to myself…. I wonder what shampoo and conditioner he uses and where could I get a pair of those really cool sandals. They have got to be far more comfortable than these cheap shoes from China that I wear all the time.

Every eye in the place was upon Jesus as he politely asked the bartender for a glass of water. The bartender, Ernie, pours a glass of water for Jesus. The moment Jesus’s hand touches the glass, the water instantly turns into wine, red wine, to be exact. With a satisfied smirk, Jesus, lifts the glass and takes a sip. Jesus smiles, for he knows that it is good. What a freaking showoff.

The chanting starts up all over again… Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

Suddenly, above the raised voices of the chanting crowd, the Bartender, Ernie, could be clearly heard saying; “Hey Buddy, If you’re going to keep doing that, the water’s not complementary, I got a business to run”. Jesus raised his glass to Ernie and smiled as he turned and walked away.

Jesus, and his now considerable entourage, started heading my way around the bar.
Jesus, still holding his water-glass which was
still miraculously filled with red wine.
I decided that I wasn’t dealing with that kind of showboating, so I turned
my back on Jesus and towards the bar while I continued to slowly sip my beer.

I could sense, and feel, that Jesus had stopped directly behind me, that and the fact, that his entire entourage, had also seemed to have stopped as well.

Of course, I tried my best to just ignore Jesus, and not even bother to turn around and face him. Hopefully, Jesus would just go away. I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to be that lucky.

Believe me I was in no mood to talk to Jesus, as I was still conflicted on exactly what strategy I was going to use, to hopefully win the entire tournament, and the $25,000.00 first prize. Before any tournament, I prefer to just be alone, to reflect and relax.

You are not going to believe what happened next…Seriously, you should be sitting down, before reading this……

Jesus, who was until then just being really annoying by standing directly behind me, Him and his entire entourage. When suddenly Jesus started trash talking me. That’s right trash talk, in a low serious voice Jesus started saying shit like; “Hey Punk!” “Think you can beat me?” “You scared?” “Well you should be.” “You think you’re the best, well maybe you are, that is until I got here, sucker!” “Don’t turn your back on Jesus.” “You want to make a wager, I will even spot you a few points.” On and on, and on.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, Jesus leaned in close to me and whispered in my ear, “Hey man, you want a smoke?” “I just happen to have your favorite brand…..”

THAT WAS IT, THE LAST STRAW! My heart was racing and my blood pressure was through the roof, I did’nt care. I slowly turned around on my bar stool, until I was face to face with Jesus, I was literally looking into the eyes of the Lord. With as much sarcasm as I could muster, I said, “No thank you, Jesus, I don’t smoke, Remember?” Now I couldn’t stop, it just kept coming out, “What kind of talk is that Jesus?” “Your father would be so proud of his only son.” (Hey, what can I say, that’s all I could think, of on a moments notice) The room suddenly became deathly silent, you could literally hear a pin drop. It seemed to me that my heart was beating so loud that the entire bar could hear it.

Jesus just stood there for a minute………….. then he laughed, laughed really loud, and confidently, his entourage also laughed, Jesus clapped me on the shoulder, looked me in the eyes, smiled and without another word, turned, and walked away, towards the arena, where the tournament would soon be held. His entire entourage followed him and they all just glared at me as they passed. I had never saw so many Jesus ass-kissers in my entire life. I don’t think that being a follower of Jesus entailed all that, but……

I considered it a good thing that Jesus didn’t turn me into a pillar of salt or fling my sorry ass into the depths of hell or anything like that. Hey, who knows which stories about him are true or not and at this point I couldn’t care less.

I watched Jesus as he continued to show off along the way as he performed a few small miracles as he made his way to the arena.

As far as I could tell, these miracles were nothing big, you know, simple stuff like placing his hand on top of a bald guys head, and suddenly, this guy grew some amazing hair, I mean seriously, this guys new hair would make even Fabio from the 1980’s insane with jealousy.

Next, Jesus placed his hand over that woman’s mouth who had no teeth and bam!, she now had a perfect set of pearly whites and I would me remiss if I forget to mention the goodhearted guy with the thick coke bottle glasses. Those lenses seriously made this guys eyes look like they were the size of golf balls. I felt really bad for him as I was pretty sure that this guy had ever had a date in his entire life. Jesus walked right over to him, pulled off his glasses, placed his hand over his eyes while he spoke softly to him. Jesus removed his hand and just like that this dude had perfect 20/20 vision. I was really happy for him.

Lastly, a young divorcee, a woman whose sleazeball of a husband left her for another woman, just because she had breast cancer, and to make matters worse she had to have a double mastectomy. Of course, her health insurance company wouldn’t pay for any sort re-constructive breast surgery because as they stated, it was not a medical necessary.

Jesus casually walked over to her, placed his hands upon her chest, and just like that she suddenly had had the most perfect set of breasts the world had ever seen. I know this for fact, because afterwards she proceeded to skip around the bar, lifting up her shirt, and showing literally everyone. Even I had to admit that Jesus had really done an amazing job as they were truly spectacular.

After every miracle Jesus performed there would be another polite round of applause, followed by another round of chanting; Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. At this point I was getting pretty damn irritated with Jesus. I really hate show-offs.

I was no fool, I knew exactly what Jesus was doing, he was just trying to psych me out and intimidate not only me but all the other finalists as well. I have no doubt that if there had been a pool of water in his path, Jesus would have walked on it, just because he could. Well, Jesus’s plan must have worked, considering that every one of the other finalists, suddenly dropped out of the tournament.

I could’nt believe it. I personally knew like twelve of those guys and when Jesus started doing his miracles they denied him and bolted for exit as soon as Jesus wasn’t looking. It was both sad and pathetic.

Now, It was down to just two, Jesus and me.

I had already resolved that I was not going to be intimidated by Jesus, or anyone else for that matter. I decided that I was going to play to the very best of my abilities. I was going to play darts just like my life depended upon it. who knows, maybe it did.

Jesus, along with his continually growing entourage of followers, slowly proceeded to walk towards the dart competition area basking in the adoration of the crowd until he finally disappeared around the corner and into the main arena.

Me, on the other hand, I was still sitting at the bar trying to process everything that I had just witnessed. I decided that I was actually rather unimpressed, so I ordered another beer, and waited.

It was kind of funny, I finally noticed that everyone seemed to be avoiding me, kind of like a dead man walking. All the bar stools on either side of me were empty. Everyone was on the opposite side of the bar making a point of not making eye contact with me, but none the less watching me closely with those weird sideways glances.

I guess I couldn’t really blame them, after all if Jesus were to have gotten really pissed off at my insolence and in a fit of rage decided to smite me (again) I guess they didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire and possibly become collateral damage themselves. I didn’t really blame them.

Hell, Ernie, the ultra cheap bartender even bought me my next beer. Let me tell you, in three years of going there, Ernie, had never, ever, bought me a free round, not even on my birthday.

After about 45 minutes or so, and two or three beers later, I heard my name being called over the PA system, the tournament will begin in ten minutes, please report to the main arena. Well, this was it, I downed the last of my beer, picked up my case of darts, gave Ernie a little nod and headed to the arena. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t scared, because I was, but I was determined to go through with it no matter what happened to me, besides I had a score to settle with Jesus.

As I casually strolled towards the arena, I noticed that off in a cozy corner of the bar, the nice guy that formerly had the coke bottle glasses, and the woman with the brand new and really spectacular boobs, were holding hands, and staring into each others eyes. I remember thinking that they made a really good-looking couple. I really hoped it worked out, for both of them. I found out later that they had gotten engaged.

Finally, as I rounded the corner to the tournament area, I began to hear the chants of, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. As I got closer, the chants grew louder, and louder still, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

As I entered the arena, I was greeted with close to 450 people chanting, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. This chanting went on for some time. It had started to seriously get on my nerves, and become really, really, annoying. I mean come on give me a freaking break already.

The Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, chant continued for some time. No matter how many times they were asked to stop, the crowd had steadfastly refused to stop chanting Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, despite being admonished by the judges, and tournament security officials, multiple times.

The tournament judges, as well as the tournament security officials obviously fearing a major disruption of the entire tournament, huddled and looked like they were having a really heated and animated discussion for several minutes. Finally, they seemed to have made a decision. The lights suddenly came up and the senior tournament judge walked up to the microphone.

The crowd sensing something was up, slowly stopped chanting Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Although, it was not soon enough for me as I was starting to get a serious headache from all the chanting of Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

The senior tournament judge began to speak…

I couldn’t believe what I heard, the tournament officials, disqualified, and removed Jesus from the final tournament. Rules are rules, and evidently disrupting the entire 23rd Annual Brooksville Invitational Darts Tournament as well as the intimidation of other players were a couple of serious ones. According to the rules, by default, I won the tournament and the $25,000.00 first place cash prize.

I never even threw a single dart, not even one, can you believe it?

Personally, I really believe that this was a case of Divine intervention.

OK, for those of you who are just about to pick up the phone and call your spouse, your friends, family and excitedly exclaim….. Check this out, Tom Dye, played in a darts tournament with Jesus and Tom Dye, actually won!

Seriously! Whoa, whoa,…Hold your horses, hang up that phone. Hang it up right now.

I have a confession to make, I just made the whole thing up. I know, I’m truly sorry. Please, let me explain….

In reality, some guy, who had just grown his hair, beard, and mustache for a few months, and coincidentally looked exactly like the famous painting of white republican Jesus, was kicked out of a darts final tournament, because close to 450 people in the crowd would not stop chanting, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

Seriously, nobody, anywhere, would actually believe that Jesus would walk into a bar, turn water into wine, trash talk a competitor and perform some cheap miracles, just to impress a bunch of drunken fools, because that my friends would be totally absurd. Or would it?

As for me, actually playing darts? There is only one way to describe my dart throwing ability, basically, I suck at darts!

The only miracle would be, if after throwing a dart, I was able to avoid seriously injuring an innocent bystander.

Remember, just because you saw something on the internet or Facebook doe’s not make it true.

As Always,

I Am….

Tom Dye, The Safety Guy

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