Happy Easter

Tis Easter Sunday
By Joseph Walther


This past Friday was Good Friday, purportedly the most solemn of days on the Christian calendar. Today is Easter Sunday, the holiest of holy days on the Christian calendar. Jesus died on the cross on Good Friday in retribution for the sins of humanity: past, present, and future. Easter Sunday commemorates His resurrection from the dead in triumph over physical death and the fulfillment of God’s promise to humanity.

Our personal beliefs regarding religious dogma are not important. The fact is that a huge number of people throughout the world believe in some form of Deity. Click here for an idea of just how many. This number includes 1.1 billion non-believers. The bottom line, though, shows that about 84% of Earth’s human inhabitants believe in a God. Even though this number is an estimate, I think it is a reasonable one, given the statistical methods used to arrive at it.

As daunting as these figures are, I’d like to concentrate on the United States. The current estimate of the U. S. population is around 298 million people. Click here to see the population clock. According to www.wikitravel.org, Christians account for about 78% of the U. S. religious population. If these figures are accurate, we have about 233 million Christians in this country. This leaves a paltry 65 million (men, women, and children) that are either religious but non-Christian or non-religious.

I decided to do a bit of surveying, myself, this Easter. Even though my home state is Delaware, a state with a geographical size comparable to your average golf course, Christians here should be similar in beliefs and religious conduct as anywhere else in the United States. In other words, Christians, no matter the location, should constitute a good statistical cross-representation of Christians everywhere else in the United State.

Beginning at 11:30 AM on Good Friday, I headed for the shopping malls in New Castle County Delaware. Of Delaware’s three counties, New Castle is the largest in population. As I compared Delaware’s total area to your average golf course, then New Castle County would be almost as large as the first tee at Augusta National Golf Course in Georgia.

New Castle County’s population as of 2004 was 519,396 people (men, women, and children). Click here to see a complete U. S. Census breakdown. Reasonably assuming that this county is representative of the U. S. Christian population, there would be around 115 thousand non-Christian believers and/or non-believers.

How, I asked myself, could a good, sincere, dedicated, compassionate, and committed Christian go shopping while Jesus Christ, suffering unimaginably while hanging from a cross with nails, dies for their redemption? I concluded, therefore, that Good Friday would render shopping malls to the status of ghost towns.

The first stop was the Brandywine Towne Center, consisting of several thousand stores, including a Target Department Store about the size of Bosnia. It was not a ghost town. I estimated, glancing at the number of people in the 3-checkout lanes out of the thirty available, that there were 132,976 shoppers. This estimate may not be right on because I couldn’t see how many people were waiting in line of hot dogs… on Good Friday.

In fairness to Christians, many of these people may not have been shopping. About 120,000 of them seemed to be wondering, zombie-like, around the inside of the store. Many of them were mumbling. For all I know, this mumbling could have been prayer. I really couldn’t tell. On the other hand, I was able to understand many of the others, and they were not talking about Good Friday, the Crucifixion, or the death of Jesus. Most of them seemed rather irritated with the zombies being in their way and preventing them from reaching the sales. Many of them called His name but there was a lot of confusing because some used “Jesus H. Christ”, while several others seemed to believe His middle name was “Fuckin.”

I drove to the Concord Mall. My estimate of the number of shoppers as of 1:30 PM was 36,412, most of them wondering around in that same zombie-like, directionless trance. They, too, seemed to be mumbling. Again, this may have been prayer. Many of the others were waiting in line for pizza. Others, and you will always find a few of these “health freak” sissies, were buying salads and pouring two or three packets of artery-clogging dressing on them.

As in the case of the other mall, I didn’t hear a single mention of Good Friday or Christ’s suffering and death on the cross.

I left and headed south to the Christiana Mall. This is easily the largest mall in New Castle County. No one really knows how many stores there are in this mall. It covers an area about the size of New York. No matter how many times you visit the place, there are more “coming soon” construction signs.

Entering the mall through the food court, I counted approximately 80,000 shoppers but I was still in the food court. I knew from experience that there had to be at least another 200,000 shoppers in the mall proper, many of them waiting to buy pretzels from Auntie Anne’s and ice cream by the gallon from Häagen-Dazs.

Of course, there were the usual numbers of aimless wonderers mumbling to each other and to themselves. But, try as I might, I did not hear a single mention of Good Friday. As in the case of the other malls, I did hear a number of people, both adults and teenagers, mention Jesus Christ, but with the same degree of confusion regarding His middle name and/or initial. I don’t think they meant it in a Christian-like manner, though.

I concluded from my analysis that the number of people who claim to honor Jesus Christ is much larger than the number who actually do. The latter group probably wasn’t at any of the malls on this past Good Friday. They were too busy in prayerful contemplation, some in houses of worship, and others at home or somewhere else alone with their thoughts, thanking Jesus for His sacrifice on their behalf.

Adding insult to injury, on Easter Sunday morning, there was the front-page News Journal article with the following headline: “With a tough election year ahead, Republicans rediscover the religious right” The article referred to the religious right as the Republican Party’s base. It described in maudlin detail how this group feels disenfranchised as the result of this Congress’ failure to pass a marriage protection amendment, anti-flag burning legislation, and new abortion limits legislation. The article included a threat by a spokesperson for the group; “Some of these better pass.”

A gag reflex is difficult to control. As I read this article, I had to summon every ounce of self-control in order to keep from puking all over the paper. I did it, though. Here are a few observations.

First, I have been a conservative my entire life and this group does not represent my feelings at all. Neither does it represent the feelings of my conservative friends and associates. I also have serious doubts that it represents the feelings of the mainstream Republican Party, any more so than the left-wing nuts on the Democratic side represent the mainstream of that party. Second, U. S. citizens who burn the flag in policy disagreements do not pose a threat to this country. On the other hand, those who advocate banning the practice pose an enormous threat to the very foundation of our Constitution’s First Amendment. Third, I fail to see what they want to protect marriage from.

Abortion is an emotionally charged time bomb and it will never be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. Both sides of this issue pose some valid points. However, it seems preposterous as all get out to think that an all-powerful, omniscient Deity would need the help of mortals. Let’s agree to let it go at this, at least for now.

I always believed marriage to be an expressed desire between two people wishing to commit themselves to each other until death parts them. While religious or civil officials may participate, they do so as witnesses. Again, God’s reputation as an all-powerful, omniscient, and omnipresent being should eliminate any need for human witnesses. Nope, if there’s such a God, it seems logical that He don’t need no help from no stinkin’ humans when it comes to protecting the sanctity of marriage.

Humans, on the other hand, do need the witnesses. Meddlers love this. Besides, someone has to divvy up the assets, alimony, and child support when lifelong true love turns out to a bust.

Many marriages are doomed to fail regardless of who marries whom. When there is no solid emotional foundation for the marriage, it’s bound to fail when “cute” stops cutting it. “Cute” begins to get old as soon as the couple gets through all of the sexual positions two, maybe three, times. Sex goes from very hot to hot to tepid to chilly, to absolute zero. And, with it fades all memories of that hot ass, voluptuous breasts, six-pack abs, and the male notion that an ample manly endowment it all that it takes.

Suddenly the couple realizes that each married a moron. It doesn’t take much to end it beyond this point. Eventually, one of them will enter the bathroom as the other is leaving it. An odor that could fell an elephant will smack them right between the eyes. “That’s it. I’m outta here!” the offended party will exclaim. Marriage over.

I swear! Some people cannot be happy unless they are actively engaged in helping their version of God dictate the morals of the human race. Watching some of these fanatics would be funny… like watching the behavior of wankers in their natural habitat. What keeps it from being hilarious is the fact that their antics hurt many hard working, honest, and decent people.

Small-minded people seem to derive a tremendously inflated sense of self-esteem from this sort of thing. A highly intoxicating rush of feelings of superiority usually follows this. They never seem to understand that the careless use of intoxicants can leave their users dazed, not to mention looking silly and humiliated.

Those relatively few members of Congress on the extremes of right and left, need to remember this as well, preferably before attempting to make their opinions the law of the land. If the Republicans lose control of the Congress, it will have everything to do with their mistaken assumption that few right wing nuts speak for the country.

Have a great week.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send your comments. Just click here.