they say the road to hell
is paved with golden intentions
and they are not mistaken i
see it's latent
hidden within psychosocial declarations
of everlasting love from a narcissistic god
i don’t give much credence to
the insistent proclamations of eternal
damnation in a metaphysical realm
of torment and brimstone but

don’t get me wrong
i’ve seen hell in the
wolfish grins of pilfering preachers
in the glassy eyes of opiated masses
i was careful when i stared
into that dark abyss
knowing it glared right back at me
emphatically declaring that i
was the lost sheep
a fallen brother separated
from the good shepherd’s flock
a prodigal son isolated in
alienating atheism but

i’ve come to love my
outcast status i’d rather
rot in the dirt after
raising hell on Earth
than suffer rebirth in ethereal bliss
espousing endless reiterations
of worship for a
fictitious megalomaniac

god is dead we killed him
deicide stains these hands
in shades of scarlet and crimson
the triumph of humanity will not
fade once again to the putrid
obeisance and ridiculous reverence
or religious references to divinity

salvation lies within

two decades of dedication
to the Christian ideal
left me dejected rejecting the
shallow lies and overt
misconceptions of religion
chose to begin again in the
reclamation of self-determination
i found a dignity independent from
a deity perpetuating guilt and regret
and though i will never forget the
progressive lessons of a radical rabbi
offering a message of hope and forgiveness
i’ve found that those same tenants
are seriously lacking in the
contemporary Christian church

if your god is
omnipotent and not
merely impotent
than tell me why he
needs you to
defend him

come on coward
if you’re real
show yourself
here’s the chance to
prove me wrong
sling lightning from the skies
and take my life i’m
not afraid i’m ready to die
and part from the suffering
that inundates this existence

strike me down and remove
all doubt of your majestic malevolence
a malfeascent adolescent prone
to fits of jealous rage and
temporal temper tantrums

that’s what i thought

i only hear the sounds of
a theological clown show
self-styled scholars enumerating  
passages of mercy and compassion
in the same holy text that condones
**** and slavery and child abuse
which would be ironic if it
hadn't been slapped together over
centuries of violence and bloodshed
and used to justify two millennia's worth of
repressive oppression a
putrescent obsession with control

it's true what Sartre said
hell is other people
and we have No Exit
from the depravity that
obfuscates critical inquiry
in the immortal words of
Shakespeare the nether-realms
are emptied all the devils are here

your god maybe a figment of
fantastic imagination but so
much horror has been wrought
with his name as the justification

so forgive me if i seem hyperbolic
but it is no exaggeration  
when i declare that religion itself
is a hell from which we're still
trying desperately to wake up