Religion in my classes

In English, God has been showing up a lot. I don't have much of a problem with it though, since like European or US History, leaving religion out of it can kind of mess things up a little. Though with English, you can be fine without reading any literature dealing with religion, so that point sucked.

Anyway, allusions to the Bible are everywhere in literature. If a snake is mentioned somewhere, one could probably make it an allusion to the snake in the Garden of Eden and it would fit. My English teacher is aware that not all of us read or have read the Bible so she made a Bible "cheat sheet". It's a list of characters and some other things within the Bible. She didn't hand this cheat sheet out though, since she didn't want to be accused of handing out religious material or whatever, so she just set it in the front and said if anyone wants one, take it. She suggested that religious people may not want to take it since she... kind of takes jabs at some of the things.

An example would be:

Noah: Built an ark and put two animals of each species in it. God flooded the world to get rid of all the bad people and Noah and company floated while it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. A rainbow appeared at the end as a promise from God that he/she wouldn't cause any more plumbing problems.

Or

Bethlehem: Town where Christ was born in a manger (not a basket) because the hotel was full. Joseph forgot to call ahead.

Nothing bad, just a little comedic.

These two past days we've read two things concerning God. One was about nature being evidence of God's greatness and the reading last night... was, well, interesting. It was an except from a sermon given by a Puritan named Johnathan Edwards called "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". For some background information, when he gave this six-hour sermon, he drove the congregation into hysteria several times. I find that hilarious. It's a lot of bullshit.

My teacher wanted us to look at the rhetorical strategies used and different stylistic devices. It was full of metaphor, scare tactics, bandwagonand just outright stupidity. He basically was saying that all of us were doomed to Hell unless we converted... or something.

We discussed all of this in class. I got the chance to say that I think God was personified as a spoiled five-year-old brat because he was dangling us over Hell and he'd drop us whenever he felt like it and that God kind of took a "It's my way or the highway" approach to things. Pretty childish, and thanks to el penguino for giving me the idea to say it. I wanted to mention how Edwards described God in a way that reminded me of the God character in the Bible, but I didn't and that may have alienated me big time. Not like I care too much anyway. My friend commented on how humans and God have a sadomasochistic relationship. He hates us and he makes us afraid but we love him and want to be with him. Stupid, isn't it?

And strangely enough, my physics teacher mentioned God today. He was talking about how when you slide a book down a table, it stops at some point. He said something along the lines of "Some evangelists would have you believe that little things called God stop it" and mentioned how some people are actually telling others this. I thought his comments on stupid ideas like that were funny.

So am I against any of this? Not really. None of my teachers are trying to convince me to convert to any particular religion or anything. I'm actually thinking my English and physics teachers aren't religious at all. Anyway, you can't
really ignore religion's influence on literature and some of the stupidity it tries to spout out.