Happy Chocolate Pagan Bunny Day!

1.  I never committed a sin before I was born, so I didn't need someone to take the fall for me 2000 years ago.

2.  There is nothing moral or just about a person being tortured to death as payment for something someone else did.  Blood doesn't wash away sins.

3.  I will not be guilted into loving or worshipping or following someone because he allegedly let himself be tortured and/or because he claims to love me.  This sounds like a classic battered spouse relationship- "I suffered for you, so if you don't worship me you are a horribly ungrateful human being."

4.  I don't need a "relationship" with a fictional character to be a worthwhile person or to achieve fulfillment in my life.  And you can't convince me that I do or that I'm sad "deep inside" because I don't "get it."

5.  So many of these "Jesus Loves Me" people pose as admirers of Israel and of Jews, but their own doctrines make very clear that Heaven is open only "through Christ."  Martin Luther, for example, stated that Redemption and Salvation are possible outside the Church but "not outside Christ."  If the people I know and work with every day aren't welcome into heaven, it's too exclusive for me, too.

6.  Jesus "loves me" but he'll never help me with my taxes, or in keeping my house clean, or take a walk with me, or drink coffee with me at the local Starbucks, or take in a movie with me, or do any of the thousand things my real, non-imaginary friends do with me.  His love and $1 will buy me a hamburger at McDonald's.  Given the choice, I'll take the $1.

Enjoy your chocolates.