If you're not a believer, you may be perplexed When you see how they treat their most sacred
of texts Interpreted, twisted, distorted, and flexed,
Their exegesis leaves us feeling quite vexed For whenever you quote what their holy book
said, They'll claim that it doesn't - you must have
misread If you think you've found something to leave
their face red, They've reasoned it means something different
instead.
Six days made the earth?
Just a metaphor, fool We're allowed to buy slaves?
That's no longer a rule And Adam and Eve, with a literate snake?
It's only a parable, make no mistake Does it preach death for gays?
No, they're just damned to hell You can let witches live, but they're hellbound
as well And all of those laws that regard menstruation?
An old, obsolete, bureaucratic creation!
Excuses abound, with their long-practiced skill
They can write off most anything - you know they will
But then comes the twist in this splitting of hairs:
Their comrades have much different answers from theirs!
They've rationalized it a whole different way
You won't get a straight answer, I'm sorry to say
For the doctrines of everyone other than they Are the very beliefs against which they inveigh.
From Catholic to Baptist, Messianic Jew, Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran too,
LDS, Christian Science, they all get their due
As each one insists that the rest are untrue So who's figured out the correct world view?
Which one do we follow?
Which ones to eschew?
Who among them is right?
Have they even a clue?
There's so much to sort through.
So let's start our review...
Can women be clergy, or only the men?
What happens when Jesus comes back here again?
Was he even a god?
Or a man, nothing more?
Was he stuck to the cross with three nails or four?
Could this holy wafer be part of his head?
A leg or a thigh, or just plain old white bread?
Did humans evolve?
Were they made in a week?
Is Hell full of screaming, or nary a squeak?
Is the pontiff the antichrist?
Some say it's true Is salvation by faith, or are works needed
too?
Are gays really sinners?
Just maybe, they're not Should saints be ignored, or petitioned a
lot?
Must priests remain celibate?
What's the result?
Should infants be baptized, or only adults?
Is the Bible correct to the very last letter?
Did Joseph Smith Jr. write something much better?
And let's not forget the apocalypse lore, With horsemen and dragons and angels galore
Do we all have our own resurrection in store?
Or just one-hundred-forty-four thousand, no more?
Do we even know when it might happen, if ever?
Like 2012, on the fifteenth of never?
You might be surprised, because some people say
That the world ends once there are too many gays.
And that's just a slice of the faith smorgasbord, The diversity's simply too vast to record
But if you cite the Bible, you won't be ignored You'll be set upon by a devout, raging horde
From every direction, in mob and in throng, They'll rush to accuse you of reading it wrong
Though they shouldn't be shocked when this doesn't hold sway
For they all would be wrong, if they all had their way.
You can see how it makes for a frustrating time
When this mishmash of faith has no reason or rhyme
It's enough to make atheists throw up their hands
And tell Christians to go figure out where they stand
But amidst all the turmoil, confusion and stress
Something very revealing comes out of this mess
For these plain contradictions, dissensions and shouts
Give us great ammunition for our kind of doubts.
In particular, one frequent question you'll see
Can be answered quite swiftly - if you've got the key
"So God's not your thing," pounds the old Christian drum,
"But where do you get your morality from?"
Yes, it's common enough to make anyone ill Do they really believe that we'll swallow
this pill?
As if no one could possibly know wrong from right
Without putting their faith in a myth that's so trite
Nope, I'd have no idea just what I should do
If I hadn't read tales from around the year 2
I'd be paralyzed, frozen, bewildered and lost Without moral advice from some guy on a cross.
To claim this sincerely is silly enough Yet it raises a question that's really quite
tough You're telling me that's how your ethics were
seeded, But how did you know it was this that you
needed?
Just why did you think that the Bible was true,
And not the Qur'an, or the Mormon books too?
And once you'd picked out your religion of choice,
How'd you find the best church with the right faithful voice?
What made you decide contraception was bad, And the Catholics are right when they get
very mad?
Why did you believe that God loves all the gays,
And the liberal churches have found the true way?
What made you dismiss all that snake-handling crap?
Does your church say religion's a self-righteous trap?
On origins, sexism, Hell, and the pope, What made up your mind?
Tell me, how did you cope?
It's clear that you couldn't be morally impotent You picked your own favorite brand of omnipotent!
That was your ethical judgment in action And we have that, too - it's not owned by
your faction We use our own judgment to filter beliefs,
We just don't make religion our ethical chief While you claim your morals are guided by
scripture, I think we all know this is not the whole
picture.
No matter your faith, and no matter how strong, You use your own sense of what's right and
what's wrong Meta-ethically speaking, your god's not a
plus, So please don't pretend that you're better
than us.