YOU’RE A BUM, YOU’RE A PUNK/YOU’RE AN OLD SLUT ON JUNK: A few really scattered thoughts about Ramesh’s book (see below) and my life.

The thing Ramesh pushes, more than anything else, is that you don’t need to do anything to earn human rights. You don’t have to be smart or good or kind.

This strikes me as one of the core Christian messages. God sees you. God knows you. Dude–God has your purity test results! And God loves you passionately, anyway. He died for you anyway. All He had to do was take one look at you, and He fell in love.

And you can’t mess this one up. He’ll keep loving you, no matter what stupid crazy crap you pull. (You can understand that, right? You probably have someone whom you’ve loved through her worst moments. Like the man says, “Friends hold your hand while you cry. Real friends hold your hair while you vomit.”)

There are two ways to understand one’s life. First, you can say that you have earned worth because you’re smart, well-spoken, courageous, chaste, or whatever is valued in your culture. Self-conscious. Ironic. Compassionate. Hopeful.

Or you can say that all human individuals, no matter how much they suck!, have infinite worth. You can say that no one is worthless, nothing is forgotten, every stupid smelly ornery sheep is sought out and cuffed back to the fold. (“You get back here, you! Doggone animal! Can’t you see I’m trying to feed you, you darn woolly pest?!”)

Is it histrionic to say that I can only understand my life if the second thing is true?

[eta: by the way, Ramesh’s book makes a philosophical case against abortion, embryo-destructive research, and euthanasia; it doesn’t get all God-talk-y like I just did in this post. This is stuff his book makes me think about, not stuff he actually writes about himself in the book.]