Letters to the Editor
-
Chloe: Not to Knock Your Brand New Theory of Everything, But...
"I know very well what it's like to despise Christianity."
I don't despise Christianity, darling, though common experience and world history warn us to be wary when the word comes up in conversation. I'm merely understandably sceptical of the mental and emotional health of people who live in the 21st century yet have somehow convinced themselves of the factuality of a patchwork of a few pretty silly bronze-age myths.
Let me get this straight: a super-being responsible for the creation of infinite space and time impregnated a female homo sapien in a little corner of a tiny planet in a nondescript solar system on the outskirts of one of trillions of galaxies approximately two thousand years ago in a scheme to have the resultant half-super being offspring crudely sacrificed by his peers in a bargain to cleanse the homo sapiens on this speck of a planet of their 'sins' (which any forthright creator would admit were design flaws). And you are putting energy into not only accepting this as the literal truth, but convincing others of its usefulness and veracity, yes? Do you see why I suspect there are deeper issues involved with you and your co-cultists than your peculiar take on observable reality?
Less troubling and more charmingly humorous is the Christian apologist's tendency to re-define as un-Christian any examples of Christian persons or behaviour that might embarrass the apologist in a debate. Surely you understand that this technique, if used with any consistency and in binding terms, would shrink the ranks of your sect to the dimensions of a local club of quaint-if-sanctimoniously-deluded do-gooders, easily capable of meeting once a week in your average Starbucks.
Ah, if only.
-
Yallow Boy
Also, nobody emails me in support. That's kind of a bizarre claim, as I don't post my email address.
"On forums". Read what you're responding to.
-
Useful Strategy
"Less troubling and more charmingly humorous is the Christian apologist's tendency to re-define as un-Christian any examples of Christian persons or behaviour that might embarrass the apologist in a debate."
You kinda wonder why the Catholic Church's legal team fumbled the ball on this one---you know: "Your honor, these men are not Catholic Priests...they're pedophiles!!!"
-
Ann Ominous
That was so funny! I feel the same way, in a manner or speaking. Silly silly silly...
It's important to note, however, that, as rambunctious and hilarious as it is to poke fun at the 'logic' of modern Christians, they truly run the show around here in America. After having lived in Texas for a (very. very. long.) year, I've come to the alarming realization that not only do Christians run the show but also 'Jesus is coming' and we are living in the 'last days' and 'the apocolypse' is indeed at hand. This frightening line of thnking, propegated by religious conservative faithful and their media bitches, can even be seen in the POTUS M.O. I can't help but think the Pope's rekindling of Crusades age fires seems a bit self-serving to that fearful end. I don't know if I'm seeing things clearly (how can I know?), but I honestly believe that the conservative religious fanatics actually WANT to return to the Dark Ages or the Inquisition or post-apocolypse 'Jesus-came-but-didn't-stay-because-there-aren't-enough-faithful-in-the-world' conversion crusade. I think the single biggest threat to world peace is 'god's army'...
-
re: too lazy to read...
"What I find frightening is... that it's acceptable for a group of people to take words out of context..."
It may not be acceptable, but speeches are routinely reduced to attention-grabbing soundbites.
Surely someone with the kind of prominence the Pope enjoys around the world should at least be aware of -- if not sensitive to -- that.
It comes down to this: it's possible to make the the same argument the Holy Pontiff was making w/o ever invoking words that associate Mohammed with "things only evil and inhuman." Maybe then his point wouldn't have been lost in the ensuing scuffle.
-
Another example of putting words in mouths
It's very quaint, Ann, how you presume to know everything I think.
Perhaps if you had stopped to ask, you might have found out that I do not interpret the Bible literally, nor even think of most of it as the inspired Word of God. You would have found out that the only thing I hang my hat on is that God so loved the world that God came to suffer among us and truly understand what it was like to be human. You may have discovered that I love the Bible because of what it teaches us about human nature, not because I view it as a set of commands. You may have even learned that I am a universalist. I love God and I love Jesus but I don't particularly think that they are the only path to salvation, nor do I think that Jesus is the only way through which God and God's love is revealed to people. Indeed, I hold with the letter of James when it says that it is not through faith alone but through works that we are saved: In my mind, anyone who acts like Christ, regardless of whether or not they consider themselves to be so, is a Christian, and anyone who shows love to their fellow man is, indeed, loving God.
But, of course, making childish assumptions about other people's beliefs when you know nothing about them, that must be cool too, since so very, very many people do it.
I also find it interesting to note that you think I'm shucking my faith of the 'bad eggs' to save face, or some such. No, dear, rather not. In fact you might have learned, if you had talked to me before making assumptions about me, that the reason I'm looking at ministry as a career is because the only way to promote change is through the inside of a system, but by bashing it from without, as you seem fond of doing. I want to help reform the church which has split so radically between the mainstream that believes in the love of Christ, and the fundamentalist conservatives who think it's their God-given duty to enforce their rather sad interpretation of God's law on the world. Of course I want to disavow these people from /my/ interpretation of Christianity. The same way, I'm sure, you try to distance yourself from political conservatives when talking to people from other nations who raise their eyebrow at our country and its policies.
That distance does not mean that you aren't, at the end of the day, in the same boat with the conservatives you try so hard to distance yourself from, and probably the moderates and liberals who don't just happen to agree with everything you say.
I find in the modern world that my greatest difficulty in communicating with people is the fact that everyone is so positively concerned that they are right, and nobody bothers to really understand anyone else. It's also quite sad that people think that they are so smart and that other people are so dumb to the point where they assume that everyone else is so one-dimensional and predictable as you seem to think I am. I'm glad I've had this opportunity to dispel your childish stereotypes of what it means to be Christian.