"Christian Conservatives...."

xposto

remember, the main reason WHY christian and conservative are so closely connoted nowadays is because certain conservatives spent the last 3 decades doing whatever they could to frame their religion as always being the same as their political bent.

One of the lecturers at the local arts college's belief in Christianity is so strong that even my granny what goes to church and says a rosary everyday is taken aback by it. At the same time the guy can say with a perfectly clear conscience that he supports stem-cell research and the right to choose re: abortion.

The attitude behind the first post does my fucking head in coz it reflects a tendency among more than a few ppl on this board to go for stereotypes & ad-hominem attacks instead of engaging with their opponents are actually saying when it comes to religion and a lot of other issues as well.

Although I'm not religious myself, I have great respect for the Scottish Christian Socialist tradition. It produced Kier Hardy after all.
It's all the uptight bigoted assholes who ignore the sensible stuff in the bible about love, respect, tolerance, charity, sharing etc and dig up obscure chapters in Ezekial to bash gays, women, the medical profession etc. Man those fuckers can go spin.

Yeah, like Xianity or the Bible are never used by their exponents to promote homophobia, are they? Maybe all those 'uptight bigoted assholes' with God Hates Fags placards are just taking the piss?

No worries, I could have constructed that paragraph better. Obviously the christian socialists are not the bigoted assholes who can go spin. If that's what you mean.

Even in Britain, which has a pretty liberal Christian tradition, the forces of reaction are really making inroads. Blair might say he's not doing religion in politics, but there's little doubt christian groups have his ear.
Sikh and Christian groups have been protesting at plays they believe are blasphemous. In the former case, the playwrite had to go into hiding as she was receiving death threats. She was a sikh, her play was about abuse going on in temples. Something worth discussing, rather than pretending it doesn't happen by accusing it of blasphemy.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Church in Scotland have said Catholic state schools shouldn't employ openly gay teachers because their lifestyles go against Catholic social teaching. Then what about all the non-Catholic staff who keep these schools running? It's madness.
It's deeply depressing that a religion that is supposed to be about love has been hijacked by screaming reactionaries and bigots. Nothing new admittedly (Crusades, Spanish Inquisition etc)but I just can't understand how Evangelicals can square their Christianity with the corruption, greed, lies and murderousness of the Bush regime.

Sure as it chaps my ass when someone says "An atheist, huh, well STALIN was an atheist, too!"

Luckily, the election and everything that's followed has made it FUN FUN FUN again. I could qualify my distaste for these "let Terri live!" freaks by adding that not all Christians are like that, not all Conservatives, etc. But to be honest, if they're going to act like idiots, I get to call them idiots.

JESUS SUCKS CHRISTIANITY'S GHEY ETC ETC ETC

(Extreme example, I know. But the point is there.)

If you're going to subscribe to a specific religion, why not just go with the oldest and therefore most likely to be correct? Makes sense to me. Paganism needs a non-dorky resurgence in popularity, methinks.

JESUS SUCKS CHRISTIANITY'S GHEY

Overwhelming respect for their right to believe there - and nicely unsubtle bit of "let's associate them with pedlos" thrown in for good measure.

Wow. Just...wow.

I also thought this was amusing because — hello? Read much news about the Catholic Church lately?

Also, it would be quite difficult to introduce you both to something called "sacrasm," rather than "sarcasm." Muh bad.

christian liberal/progressive.

but... hello?
These are not the only ones in the world. Some child abusers DON'T EVEN BELIEVE IN GOD! Amazing but true - the Catholic Church doesn't have a monopoly on sick fucks.

Seriously, I agree. There is no monopoly on sick fuckery.

Sorry dood, but I've gotta admit this particular sentence made me roffle.

Some child abusers DON'T EVEN BELIEVE IN GOD!
The same can be said of right wing conservatives. Make of that what you will...

i believe in got.

http://www.black-collegian.com/african/images/ph_revjjacksonjr.jpg

Or a different type of Christian is someone who just follows the teachings of Jesus. What he said or what was written about him has become a moral code they apply to their lifes. Yet they still approach life as a materialist or secularist would.

"I, for one, don't have any problem categorically with Christians. I have a problem with anyone of any race color creed or whatever who is a totalitarian/bigot/plutocrat/anti-rationalist/crypto-fascist."

There are differing fundamentals in where Truth lies. i.e. in material, in the senses, or for the first type of Christian above, in the Bible and the Holy Spirit's guidance. Someone who follows the fundamental that Truth comes from the Bible and Holy Spirit may appear as a bigot. Likewise, from the Christian's point of view, someone who says Truth only comes from material and the senses could appear to be a bigot.

dude, dorothy day!

He was on AirAmerica earlier today, too.

There is a large left-leaning christian minority but you wouln't know about them because they're not trying to shove it down anyone's throat. Religion should be a private household affair, not a matter of public policy. America is, after all, a secular state.

Strangely: Reagan, who is the conservative's wet dream, was a deeply religious man who barely spoke of it in the public realm. He kept it to himself, and didn't make any great proclamations about faith, though we know that astrology may have aided him in the latter-day babbling period.

Back to my born again friend. He has this ghastly book called "I kissed goodbye to dating" which tells you to supress any lustful feelings and just be friends with a member of the opposite sex (of course!). God will tell you when you are ready, but first you must do his work etc. This whole thing seems based on some twisted assumption that if you ask someone out on a date it means you'll be jumping into bed with them 5 minutes later! Now, I respect someone who says they won't have sex before marriage, it's their choice, but this seems to go deeper, betraying a real suspicion and distrust of normal human interaction. What's so bad about asking someone out?

He also gave me this book by a journalist that apparently proved that the resurrection really happened. Hmmm. I haven't actually read it, but I'm tempted to, just to pull it apart. "It's by a sceptic! He changed his mind as he discovered the truth!" He'd say. So?

He's a scientist, so you'd think he'd be a bit more rational. He'll say that many scientists seem to say god exists. Well, actually, that's extrapolating. They're inserting God into what most scientists would classify as the unknown.

Recently he tut tutted at an article in my fanzine having a go at religious censorship (not my article, but I agreed with it). "But Jerry Springer the Opera made a mockery of god!" he'd say. Yeah, so?
Don't watch it, don't spoil the fun for everyone else.

MLK
Madeleine L'Engle
C.S. Lewis

http://cslewis.drzeus.net/papers/politics.html

He was apolitical in may ways but also interested in social justice--and deeply distrustful of politicians.

Replace "socialist" with "pedophile", "exhibbitionist" and/or "man-lover" and you've got yourself a wind-up to be proud of.

xpost

some might say that the catholics are actually quite liberal in their regards towards the poor and towards war, yet quite conservative with regards to birth control issues. likewise, a methodist might be quite accepting of female leadership, while a baptist may or may not. you've got certain churches that completely accept gays and don't discourage their lifestyle, while some despise them, and many, many others typically fall in between. there's so much variety, it's difficult to wrangle very generalized statements. this also gets ever more complicated when you step out of America. European christians are a completely different breed... as are african and south american.

that's why "Christian Conservatives" as a term is dangerous and annoying. it makes a stereotype for people to identify with even when they don't really agree with half of the politics. things like the environment and the death penalty are completely trivialized by abortion. this is probably the case of all banners though. i vote leftly in general, but i quite frequently have little in common with the US democratic party. also, to be so identified as a demographic gives it power.

it's made those of us outside that tradition put in a weird place. it sucks. is that why we're quiet? i can't say. is it the myth of the LIBERAL MEDIA CONSPIRACY? by that i mean that notion that the liberal news media is holding down the republicans and keeping them the underdog... just like the working man! "so let's vote for W, he's our man!" ha. just like this schiavo case is become the perfect platform for, "see, the liberal activist judges are screwing us christians!" is it that or am i putting for a CONSERVATIVE MEDIA CONSPIRACY!?!? hehe. whatever is causing liberal christians to be unheard is probably the same situation that the democrats have been in. the right has made itself the squeaky wheel.

hopefully these things will start backlashing a little. i know there's been some groaning over the schiavo case as many disagree with the president and congress over the issue. i mean, she's a catholic... and HI, catholics are a-ok with feeding tube removal. that's not suicide.

people have become incredibly adept at announcing that the sky is falling...
m.

"beautiful"

well, dude, nobody here doubts that for a second...

And so on and so forth.

x-post

plenty of folks, regardless of their religious beliefs, believe life begins at girl cell meets boy cell and so therefore, the thing ain't so simple. i used to know quite a few vegan-types who were very pro-life. and they were all pretty lefty, some annoyingly extra lefty in fact... and not necessarily of a faith.

i teeter on the anti-abortion fence personally, yet still am pro-choice with regards to the greater disagreement. how do you figure out when life begins? heck if i know. and if i'm that confused, how can i judge anyone else for their answer? i'm not supposed to judge anybody anyways.

m.

http://fp.users.fast.net/infoquest/judging.htm#Intolerance

anyway, that graphic is a t-shirt that reads:

Intolerance is a beautiful thing.

Our founding fathers were intolerant of taxation without representation.

Thomas Jefferson was intolerant of King George III.

Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman were intolerant of only men voting.

Winston Churchill was intolerant of Adolph Hitler.

Martin Luther King was intolerant of segregation.

Mother Teresa was intolerant of abortion.

Jesus Christ is intolerant of hypocrisy.
(actually spelled "hypocracy" on the shirt

kicker is for us not to fall for it, or rather, not to go in for their tactics: shouting on the pundit shows, alienation of the Other, intolerance, etc

...We have to acknowledge the grave threat to society posed by those deeply religious individuals who “know” that their actions are in accordance with a “higher authority”. Whether they are jihadist terrorists or Christian Fundamentalists, their absolutist certainty is an evasion of moral reasoning and the careful balancing of means and ends on which civilization depends.

now, there are Good Things, and Not Good Things. ANYthing else must be Evil. And you don't interact or compromise with Evil, now do you? why, that would be a moral weakening! you might allow some of those in your flock to be led astray!

No, any Evil must be hunted down and killed. It doesn't matter how damaging or painful this process is. because we are doing Good, we are Righteous & Just. Extirpation, not Sublimation, is the name of the game. why, didn't that one guy in the Bible say, "if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell"?

and so you must never engage with, never Tolerate those others, for they aren't you, so they are not Good.

(etc.)

if you want to continue to characterize them in that manner, you'll never understand them and you'll never effectively deal with them.

m.

Heh. You're making it sound like they're the super-tolerant ones.....and let's face it, we all know that's not true.

'twas being overly dramatic. i used overly sharp terms to illustrate a deeply-entrenched fear of anything Other.

and if you've been payin' attention, son, you'll notice that i'm not the one wielding the harshest words on these last few threads.

altho! certain folks in certain gubmints have said that they were going to make it a matter of policy to "hunt down" the "evildoers".

And they're delusional enough to think they have Christ's support...

you're right for the most part. i think the far right and far left are equally as intolerant of people that fall outside of the carbon copy. that was a wall i hit big in my early college days where i was suddenly "part of the problem" because i refused to give up bbq sandwiches. fuck guilt and guilt-trippers.

but anyways... my point above was that these people THRIVE on being the underdogs. it's a huge theme in early church history and so it's super easy for them to play that card. and it's a rallying type of move as well. you see all kinds of bullshit about liberal activist judges and liberal media conspiracies. it's like the white man finally figured out how to be afflicted and not have anybody call them on it. so when we characterize them as nazis and fascists, they just get that much more afflicted. every punch makes them stronger as martyrs.

that's why we need to hug them. i think at least. of course, that's the most christian move i can make. (which may not be appealing to my nonchristian political brethren. heh.)

i dunno. asstalking.

provvoe, i feel ya. they err on the side of life only when it matches their agenda. not on the death penalty. not on bombing civilians. of course, a pro-lifer is generally shocked that your average peta member cares more about animals rights than embryo rights. from their angle it seems just as opportunistic. they cite millions killed by abortion in their own country which feels small compared to conventional warfare that we've been directly involved in, etc. it makes them feel like they've got a hitler or stalin in their country. it's actually amusing that both peta-types and anti-abortion activists like to reference slavery... "we'll look back 100 years from now and be shocked at how barbaric we were."

m.

http://www.halturnershow.com/

SUGGESTION FOR CATHOLIC CHURCH OFFICIALS REGARDING SCHIAVO CASE
Michael Schiavo enjoys legal guardianship of Terri Schiavo because they are "married." But "Marriage," when performed in a church, is a religious sacrament - not a civil ceremony.

SInce Michael Schiavo has been living with another woman instead of his wife Terri for the past ten years he is, according to church doctrine, committing "Adultery."

SInce the church bestowed the sacrament of Marriage, the church can revoke it. I suggest the Catholic Church declare the marriage of Michael and Terri Schiavo to be ANNULLED.

This would be grounds for Terri's parents to challenge his legal guardianship since he would no longer be her "husband." The parents could then sue for Guardianship as Terri's nearest relatives and the court would be hard pressed to say otherwise.

Since the Vatican itself has referred to this situation as "direct euthanasia; a pitiless way to kill" I think the hierarchy of the Church would act on this suggestion quite quickly.

-- Hal Turner
---
PLEASE STOP CALLING THE FBI TO "REPORT" THIS WEB SITE.
The poor bastards have received hundreds of phone calls to dozens of their offices nationwide today alone, and they already know what I've posted here. In fact, by their own admission, they monitor this web site every single day. It's been that way for the last four years.

Agents from the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force visit me upwards of twice a month and have done so for the last two years. Agents from the U.S. Secret Service, US Marshall Service and Troopers from the New Jersey State Police Counter Terrorism Unit have also visited me numerous times over the content of this web site.

In each instance, no action by law enforcement was needed (or possible) because despite what you may THINK about what appears here, nothing on this site is a "threat." This site contains my OPINIONS. As harsh as they may be, we are still free to express our OPINIONS, even when other people don't like them.

As such, please leave the poor FBI alone. -- Hal Turner

MAYBE I'VE BEEN LOOKING AT THIS TERRI SCHIAVO THING THE WRONG WAY. . . . .

I've been proceeding from the assumption that she was merely a totally innocent, completely helpless woman being savagely deprived of life through slow starvation and dehydrationher by an adulterous husband with the blessing of renegade courts acting in direct defiance of U.S Congress Subpoenas, . But on second thought. . . . . .

She was born a jew, but converted to Catholicism. Being born a jew makes one a racial jew no matter what religion they convert to. And seeing as racial jews are the lowest form of scum in the history of this planet, (They've been thrown out of more countries than any other race in history) maybe starving Terri to death isn't too bad a thing at all.

In fact, since there are so many other jews in Florida, doubtless many who are seriously ill from all their inbreeding and race mixing, maybe this Schiavo thing is a terrific way to set case law as an excuse to get rid of a whole slew of other jews!

I still think it would have been far more humane to simply gas her to death. But I guess after all the hoopla about "gas chambers" in Germany back in WW2, the powers that be are a bit squeamish about using that method again.

Oh well.

-- Hal Turner

Like King Herod's men, ordered to slaughter every newborn male child, and the NAZI guards of WW2 who were "just following orders" our brave police are, today, "doing their duty"

10 Year Old Boy (EVIL CHRISTIAN ZEALOT?) Arrested After Attempting To Bring A Glass of Water to (Filthy Jew) Terri Schiavo!

These cops are aiding, abetting and enabling the death of a completely innocent, totally helpless woman, Terri Schiavo, who is being systematically starved to death.
Aren't you just SO proud of them?

I advocate the use of force to rescue Terri Schiavo from being starved to death.
I further advocate the killing of anyone who interferes with such rescue. -- Hal Turner

indeed. Lakoff mentioned something about how if you directly tried to attack someone's framing, you end up just supporting it. or, put another way(by MLK Jr when explaining his nonviolent approach), "the Master's Tools will not destroy the Master's House."

http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/americavotes/carter-shirt.jpeg

...While researching the Book of Hosea I read a lot of online essays by Christian scholars. I became sympathetic when I saw just how much these poor guys had to read between the lines with the Old Testament.

The problem is that modern Christianity takes its cues on morality from the New Testament, most of which is directly contradicted in the pages of the Old. You'll have OT God saying something indescribably awful, like: "Their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up (Hosea 13:16)." Now some poor Christian scholar has to run "I kill babies" through the New Testament decoder ring until he's able to come up with something like: "This passage is really God saying that he loves us, and that we must prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ."

It's hard to fault these guys for trying to knead a little New Testament sugar into the proceedings. After all, there's not a word about loving neighbors or God's love or even Christ in the OT—mostly just a lot of ranting about worshipping false gods being the last mistake you'll ever make, and one bitch gets turned to salt. As far as I could see, there's not even a single mention of Heaven in the Old Testament. Basically, you submit to God's will for your entire lifespan. Then you die. If you don't, he kills you. God is then flabbergasted and enraged when people start worshipping sex gods...

But it'd be a misplaced judgment if you let your dislike of Christian culture decide how you feel about Christian theology.

thing is, that's the kicker. there IS no single Christian culture, just like there's no "traditional" set of Christian values. all these flavors have several hundred years of history behind them. this isn't an argument for relativism(arguements which easily wind up in morass), but rather that different groups of people have different viewpoints, framings and mindsets about this.

a problem that many of us have is that a sizable group has decided to brand their particular reading of it all as the only valid history, the only valid set of traditions. they've tended to be the loudest about their way for the last generation, and have now a sizable hold on making policy.

of course, it doesn't help that the current dominant group(not necessarily the largest, or anything, just the ones currently grasping the rod of command) is such that doesn't allow for or tolerate criticism of any kind. for example, check everything john ashcroft has said for the last 3+ years whenever there was even an indistinct grumbling about the way he or anyone else in the current Admin went about doing things.

suddenly bush must be holy roman emperor of the united states of america or something.

if you're not voting for the president, you're on a prayer list.

i agree tho with kingfish, that's just one wedge of christianity... and american christianity. as i heard someone preach from the pulpit last fall, "i'm not sure i'm voting for the democrats because they're not liberal enough!"
m.

"there IS no single Christian culture, just like there's no "traditional" set of Christian values"

Generally speaking IMO all Christians share a remarkably similar set of core values- without those vlaues they cease to be Christian in any meaningful sense. How those values are expressed and the different empahsis placed is where most difference occurs, and we all like to focus on difference. WHilw you may be alluding to pluralistic (sp/gr?) nature of Church history it would take a very large leap of "faith" indeed to "believe" there is no traditional set of Christian values.

remember, their mindset, viewpoint, and system of morality is based on what they consider a fixed, static set of Universal Absolutes. they consider the values they have to be received from God from their particular interp of a version of the Bible.

>>>>>>>I agree on the universal absolutes although the objective/ subjective nature of this needs to be stressed if a true understanding is to be gained of Christian morality, and an understanding of the non judgmental nature of true faith. Sadly as you point out the old adage stands tru Christians themselves are the best arguemnt against Christianty. Our fallen nauture.

Howeveer catholics, as by far and away the largest body of Christians, and the source of all CXhristian truth, dont believe that the Bible is the sole source of truth. Funny that for 350 years and 33 Popes before the Bible was producded the catholic Chruch taught the very same doctrinal truths, taught after Constantine. Clealry the Bible was never intended to be privately interpreted without any reference to the very Church that produced it. The Bible is a collection of writings from different times and places for different specific purposes, it doesnt contain all truth, in fact vorginally the texts were nver intended to comprise a book at all. The truth contained int the Bible has come form the truth contained int the church.

Because God says that these things, they must be Good, True, and Just, right?

Actually true faith is not a series of propositions IMO but an interior relection of conscience, the cornerstone of true Christian morality. One cannot sin against their own conscience, even if objectively speaking I am in error the conscience is supreme -again the objective/subjective issue, v. big issue/arguments here

now, there are Good Things, and Not Good Things. ANYthing else must be Evil. And you don't interact or compromise with Evil, now do you? why, that would be a moral weakening! you might allow some of those in your flock to be led astray!

Nothing coule be further form the truth, jesus not only talked to the very worst sinners he sat down and ate with them, to the horror of the pharsiess.We are all sinners and the Chruch has never conmdemed any single person to hell, ever- even Judas. Men jusge other men on their actions God judges men on the moral cjoices they make etc

AS an aside many things are intrinsically morally neutral.

No, any Evil must be hunted down and killed. It doesn't matter how damaging or painful this process is. because we are doing Good, we are Righteous & Just. Extirpation, not Sublimation, is the name of the game. why, didn't that one guy in the Bible say, "if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell"?

and so you must never engage with, never Tolerate those others, for they aren't you, so they are not Good

WHy dont you run a search ont hat selective quote and try and put it into some context or amke an attempt to understand it rather that bolster your own position with aflase represtation of Christian theology?????????

peace.

According to what Christians *claim* to believe, it also doesn't cover believing that the Bible is not the single sole source of Truth. However, it's easy to see that Fundamentalists rely on Church-revealed (or leader-revealed) truths just as much as Catholics - the only problem is that you're talking about different leaders and therefore different truths.

If we think about it, if we are to take your claims to be true then we can only come to the cnclusion that Jesus was a liar when he said he would be with his church , the one HE founded, the one Peter belonged to until the end of time. If we are to believe that Jesus and the APostles talked about "THe Church" - which they did often and history shows us that there was no Christian Church but the Catholic Church on earth before the 11 century , then which Christian Church do you suppose Jesus and Apostles were speaking of when they wrote and spoke of "The Church"?

It doesnt take a thelogian to work that one out.Plain common sense. WHen there is only ONE, the article "the" is adequate designation.

Peace!

core christian values SHOULD cover that, but the failings of individuals have created a situation where it's not. i guess that's the big problem... the ideal is in christ's actions. what did he do? one of his best friends was a prostitute. he befriended the awful. healed the outcast. etc. but look to the rest of us to try to live up to that and you'll find something very different.

there is unity in the church... a central core... but since nobody's perfect and subjectivity is huge, nobody's teaching the perfect truth with the perfect translation and interpretation in the perfect way. everybody is getting it just a little wrong somehow. just because our subjective selves can't be objective and can't fully grasp absolute truth and act on it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist in god. i believe enough of that whole truth made it into the bible and church we have today. that's my faith though.

of course, my post-modern take on christianity would greatly bother some christians. thing is, that's okay. there's room in the tent for variation in thought. that's my view tho. other, more legalistic christians might disagree. "god can't have different rules for different people!" they might say. but life isn't that simplistic. again, my view.

m.

also, note that I'm not necessarily trashing Christianity(dude, i've fuckin' been a presbyterian since i was like 10-20 days old). I just have MAJOR problems with a certain modern american political group who brand their reading of it as the Only True Way, and since they say their politics are based on their interp of the Bible, they must be Right(ous). Religion becomes a club, a way to hammer over those who might not completely agree with you.

well if your reading of the Bible is just as flawed and incomplete as anyone else's, who are you to tell other people they aren't "real" (or "Biblical") Christians? By your definition *nobody* is a "Biblical Christian". "Judge not lest ye be judged" etc.

I am not able to tell other people that. Only God can. That is why he gave us the Bible. In practice reading the Bible is a life process and lots of times I notice it says something that I didn't agree with. When that happens I am reminded of my lack of understanding and am pointed towards a need for Jesus. There are people who do more of the good God commands of them. The Pharisees in the Bible were really good at understanding and doing what was commanded, but they lacked in realizing that all their striving towards goodness was in vain. When the Christian realizes that they will never achieve goodness and only Jesus is the way then they are thankful and desire to follow what is taught in the bible.

Everybody loves the Bible. It's shit-full of good advice you can apply to everyday life, from "turn the other cheek" to "God hates fags."

What many people don't know, however, is that the Bible isn't just the basis for highly collectible Jesus plates—it's also an enormous goddamn thousands-years-old book.

A lot of it's still applicable today. If you're looking for sage advice as to the spiritual direction of your life, Jesus apparently knows the score. I've never spoken to the man personally — but he's gotten enough thumbs-up reviews from friends that, fictional or no, he's probably at least as smart as Oprah. A guy could pay attention to Jesus and do well for himself. Worst case scenario: you don't get to fuck your neighbor's wife, and everyone gets to slap the shit out of your face.

But keep in mind, the Bible's as thick as a phone book. For every chapter about Jesus wind-sprinting across a lake to tell you how much he loves kittens, there's another with God making a smoking peasant fireball because they sacrificed a goat to Him with the wrong knife.

Once you wade past the shallow end of the New Testament into the back half of the Old Testament, get ready: it turns out God's a fucking lunatic, and He loves the taste of your blood. Old Testament God ain't letting Himself get nailed to any crosses like some pussy; OT God wouldn't spit on your balls if they were on fire. If He covers your eyes with boils to win a bet with Satan, consider yourself lucky He didn't turn your city into a mushroom cloud for not praying to Him enough. Even a cursory reading of the Old Testament leaves only one conclusion: God is a total hardass, and if you step out of line He will most likely drop you in the time it takes most people to open a door.

http://img123.exs.cx/img123/1623/esau7fj.jpg

We can't count on restraint from people like Mr. DeLay, who believes that he's on a mission to bring a "biblical worldview" to American politics, and that God brought him a brain-damaged patient to help him with that mission.

What we need - and we aren't seeing - is a firm stand by moderates against religious extremism. Some people ask, with justification, Where are the Democrats? But an even better question is, Where are the doctors fiercely defending their professional integrity? I think the American Medical Association disapproves of politicians who second-guess medical diagnoses based on video images - but the association's statement on the Schiavo case is so timid that it's hard to be sure.

http://www.cbhd.org/resources/endoflife/kilner_advancedirective_2005-03-24.htm

"It is all too easy for some to dismiss concern for maintaining Terri’s feeding tube and life as merely a “religious matter.” Religious convictions are relevant to such issues."

"However, just because a religious person comes to this conclusion does not invalidate it any more than a person’s lack of religious sensitivities would invalidate that person’s views about situations such as Terri’s. Rather than worrying about the religious pedigree of people addressing Terri’s plight, the first order of business in the public arena should be to address more satisfactorily two central ethical issues, the medical situation and the patient’s wishes."

And that church is the Greek Orthodox Church, pagan.

"When the Christian realizes that [s/he] will never achieve goodness and only Jesus is the way then [s/he is] thankful and desire[s] to follow what is taught in the bible."

That's really warped, dude. The Bible constradicts itself left and right, and is written in myriad dialects of ancient languages. Do you read any of them? The Christ came down to clear up some confusion. "Love one another." That's it, that's the main thing. It's not hard. And you don't even have to believe in Jesus's divinity to do it. It would be amusing if it weren't so tragic how poorly these anti-intellectual fools running the country now and clogging the air waves understand humble, Christian love.

Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me." - John 14:6

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no-one can boast." - Ephesians 2:8,9

http://www.ccel.org/contrib/exec_outlines/bible/bible_03.htm

Uh...done and done. I refer you to however many court and medical opinions this case has generated.

As for "worrying about the religious pedigree," let's just step back a moment and remember who dragged their god into this mess in the first place.

(i kid! i kid!)
m.

What we need - and we aren't seeing - is a firm stand by moderates against religious extremism. Some people ask, with justification, Where are the Democrats?

because left-leaning religious folks(christian mainly, but happens with much of the others) are gun-shy about talking about their religion. they feel that they're opening themselves up to attack from the right, and, oh yeah, and from bits of the left. check any thread on this board for an example of what can happen.

but the main thing is that the main folks who be so stridently vocal about their beliefs have been, for lack of a better term, fuckhead reactionaries. and so, over time, any expression of faith or belief or any sort of spirituality becomes associated with the fuckheads and thus stigmatized.

again, i thikn this akin to the Narcissism of Small Differences kicking in. Who gives a fuck if those in your camp believe kinda differently than you, or at all? they're passionately for the same shit you are(usually pro-environment, pro-local bidness, pro-open gov't, pro-art, pro-science, pro-wrestling, pro-choice, pro-good-wheat-beer-that-runs-about-$4-a-pint-on-sale, pro-union, etc). so lets shut the fuck up in our petty distracting squabblings and combine our strengths to focus on the real problems.

as Ben Franklin once said, we might as well all get fucked over together, for assuredly we will get all fucked over seperately.

What is scripture was decided by a group of 4th century men who wanted something that reinforced their power and their worldview, something they could use to define a few handy heresies against and start cracking skulls. the old testanment is similar, only the men are older and strech back generations but still the motive was breaking skulls and siezing land.

I guess that meants the Xtian Cons are using the Bible just as it was intended.

but uh... the united methodist church is a pretty huge denomination and a good chunk of it is pretty liberal. no practicing gay ministers i think... but dude, the gay issue is one that you have to kind of squirrel with. it and abortion are the hugest issues. take those two away, and there are no issues. the rest of the issues fall very leftly very easily.

that's why i think the republicans will never do anything about abortion and gay stuff. as long as there's a democrat to spoil the passing, ya know, to keep up appearances and have somebody to blame, then they don't have to do anything and they can keep getting elected. sorry, conspiracy hyperbole.
m.

yes and no. um, actually, that 4th century group largely assembled the OT then too. of course, chunks of it already existed in groups. the torah for example. but...

i've read several of the books they passed on... most of them are either pretty easily heretical... or weren't read aloud a lot, so they were considered extraneous. there were several lists around of books that different churches read and used, and that helped decide.

ugh tho, that discussion can get out of hand in a hardcore way.

as a christian, i still maintain that regardless of the bumps along the way, what i have as a bible is good enough. that's faith tho. no proof. i feel like the core message is still in there.
m.

I'm not sure about that. If you said they were more likely to be ecumenical, yeah, for sure, but I know plenty of generally liberal people who are very serious about their basic Christian dogma. I think the problem is more that their very conception of faith -- as a personal issue best kept within the church and home -- makes them uncomfortable carrying god into the public sphere. And I respect that. (Evangelicals mostly felt the same way until about 30 years ago, for that matter.) I just, I mean, if it was me -- and it's not, and it's presumptuous I know to give advice on what Christians should do, as a non-Christian -- but if it was me, I would be appalled at seeing something I valued used the way it's being used. When the religious right speaks up, they're not just claiming the authority of the 30 million evangelicals they say they represent, they're speaking for all Christians everywhere. The only thing that can effectively counter that voice is another Christian voice, because otherwise it turns into "secular vs. religious," and the secular side is gonna lose that fight every time.

...For the sake of argument set aside -- as these millions do -- the question of what Schiavo would have wanted. There is a noble impulse at work here. These folks would be willing to give, even to give sacrificially, for the sake of another. That's a Good Thing.

The Schiavo case, of course, is not the hypothetical scenario that Warren presents. It is not simply a matter of insufficient resources. Yet multitudes of just such cases do exist. Yet because these cases are not causes celebre their existence goes unnoticed, their need unheeded, by the same "millions and millions of people" who are so ready to contribute to care for Terri the Symbol.

This is where the blindered hypocrisy comes in. American evangelicals really are Very Nice People. They would never, like Dives in the parable, callously disregard the suffering of poor Lazarus on their very doorstep.

Yet they have no problem constructing lives and communities that prevent them from ever having to see, or notice, or acknowledge the existence of the billions of Lazaruses (Lazari?) who make up the majority of our neighbors in this world. After all, good, decent people simply can't be expected to raise their children in the kinds of neighborhoods where beggars are loitering on doorsteps.

The sympathetic impulses of these Very Nice People are real, but they are stymied by context and by a semi-voluntary refusal to look at those outside of that context. This semi-willing blindness imperils "The Soul of the New Exurb." When the blindered context of American evangelicals gets combined with poisonous reassurances about the undeserving poor, and then used in the service of self-interest-group politics that pits it against any larger, common good, then these Very Nice People can wind up having a very nasty effect on the world around them...

I didn't want to start a theological debate specifically, i wanted to reinforce the idea of the books as fiction, myth, whatever cooked up from a variety of ingredients to reinforce a specific worldview.

well, not so long ago, most americans were probably church going christians, so that's hard to quantify.

re: organizing liberal christians...

christians would probably have easier ground with other christians, but it's hard to handle. you have to handle it outside church generally because even tho the right has brought politics into some churches, i think that's a bad thing. they should know better. it hurts unity. our citizenship to christianity is supposed to come first. blaring liberalism in some churches is just gonna stir up trouble.

organizing as denominations is bad too because some denoms naturally ignore some other ones. "oh, they believe XYZ, can you believe that?" some churches eschew denomations altogether. etc.

it's definitely frustrating to have your voice hijacked.
m.

but why? for what useful reason? what would be the point of continually hammering in that aspect?

http://www.deltanet-consultants.com/Premise/Uniting/uniting.htm

...By their very nature, hierarchies are organizations of similar groups making their small differences as significant as possible. The more hierarchical the organization, the stronger will be the hostility among groups in the company. Tightening up the rules, making individual group responsibilities clearer, and eliminating overlapping responsibilities only increases the effects of the narcissism of small differences.

The way to get people in the organization to become more interdependent within the organization is to focus people's propensity to unite on something outside the organization. With just a little leadership, people will unite around a common interest in their customers or against the competitors and regulators.

It's a simple matter of substitution. Help people in your organization substitute a common interest in customers for their common interests in their functional unit, product line, technical discipline, etc. Help them substitute the competitors and regulators for the other departments and management from which they would otherwise seek to differentiate themselves.

It sounds simple, but the existing organization will strongly and vigorously defend the status quo.

Unite around the right things

To a winning organization, uniting means committing across all functional groups inside the organization to winning causes focused outside the organization.

It means putting the organization's core interests ahead of the personal interests of the members. Teams are naturally good at this. Hierarchies are not.

To win, you must reduce internal competition and conflict, and make the people in your organization more interdependent than your competitors do.

well yeah but Kingfish arent you getting a bit deep , I mean is it not common sense for me to believe you exist? We make assumptions all the time as long as they are based on logical inferences and reason I dont think youve got cause to gripe, otherwise we end up in redundant circular arguments . In practical terms I believe in man's native capacity to know the most fundamental aspects of reality- or common sense, although Im aware of the philosphical objections. WHen there is only ONE surely "The" will sufice ? THE moon is bright tonight..... :)

"And that church is the Greek Orthodox Church, pagan"

Ha! FOr sure its possible, although a study of the evidence may make you reconsider.The difficulty here, difficulty for Eastern Orthodox Churches that is, as most Orthodox scholars concede is the early Chruch Fathers and the Councils unanimously acknowled Rome as the senior church and the center of ecumenical agreement.Universal primacy is an issue that cannot be ignored, and if you have evidence from an Eastern perspectuve that debunks Romes claims to primacy I would love to get a link. Most importantly however post Vatican II, unity bewteen these Churches remains a very real possibility.

ED did you study archeology/history at a Mormon high school by chance?
Philosophy via Eddie Vedder perhaps? Its a potent mix to be sure.

I was going to comment on your upthread posts but given your latest salvo, its all a mute point now, not worth debating seriously - who cares if Gospels are true or not, or what happened at Nicea? "Truth" Bla thats just "stuff" you dont need these days. Ive got it, from the highest authority on such matters, that "the stuff is no longer relavent to modern humanity". Silly me, thanks for sharing Ed, your humble wisdom and vision has freed me from the "three V's" of the Bible.

Peace!

Belief is the cowards way out, knowledge is much more powerful, terrifying and exciting.

Peace:)

what the hell are you talking about? I'm just an NPC script hard-coded into the ILX mainframe.

if you talk to me enough times, i just begin to repeat my few lines over & over again.

and remember, Dodongo dislikes smoke!

Think about it. Here's some matter. I can look at it and learn something about it, learn the laws that control it, and not even bother to think about the spiritual world beyond it. That world is mysterous where anything can happen. Living by faith in something that is not totally knowable. How is that not terrifying and exciting?

How can reality be the way of the coward.

re: "liberal Christians"

I tend to think they are a different kind of Christian that focus mainly on "loving one another" and neglect other things the Bible says, and if they were to step up and use the Bible as a reason for "loving", the "conservative Christians," which tend to believe the whole Bible, would use it to point out other things it says.

Saying that I think the "conservative Christian" who follows the whole should not neglect the part of it that says be gentle and love one another. But there are just some issues that cannot be followed without ignoring parts of the bible. In those cases gentleness is the key for "conservative Christians."

Reality is like sitting in a cave not knowing there is an outside. It would take cowardice to remain in the cave and not journey outside where there is a more real reality.

The whole thing about the Bible is it is the only book that is from God. It may be cooked up in the minds of men, but God is the chef.

How do you know this is not true of the Koran or the Book of Mormon?

Liking hating people and condemning them to eternal torment? See, I like those Christians. They might be doctrinally suspect, from certain points of view, but they're much more pleasant to share a country with.

this argument is more than ridiculously worthless, it's a crime against humanity to propose a "truth" so alienating.

This is an apologetical issue which could be argued at length with the right information. Which would involve examining the predicitons by biblical prophets and their fulfillment, the unity of the whole bible, archaeological evidence, etc. Then comparing the other books in a similar study. There are probably some good books that do this sort of thing. When first becoming a Christian I didn't think the bible was the only book from God, just from practice and experience with it, and from the Holy Spirit working through me, I could become convinced of that. Studying more would help increase my faith in the bible being the only book.

check the Lakoff thread i linked to earlier in this thread for a pretty good rough articulation.

Yeah, The Biblical view is that everyone is in a fallen state (deserving of a crime against humnaity) and will never get out of the cave. No matter how hard they try to climb out it is not good enough. The only way out is for someone (the Bible claims Jesus) to be sent in to bring the people out. Jesus's existance is the only thing which makes it not alienating, because his rescue is available to anyone.

Do you feel lucky that you believe in a religion that is dominant where you grew up? Is it just coincidence that you grew up here and found your faith here as opposed to becoming a Copt or an Orthodox, say, or a Taoist? How messed up is that other people do exactly the same thing in their countries but end up with sham religions like Judaism or Islam?
this argument is more than ridiculously worthless, it's a crime against humanity to propose a "truth" so alienating.

Yeah! Fuck Plato!

Yeah, I think about this a lot. That's why recently I've been trying to study as much as I can of other religions. Yet I'm always encouraged by the Christians who grew up under a different Tradition.

My stance on this is that God would not want Christianity to be completely proveable. That would eliminate faith. And someone having in faith in God when there is no proof would give the most glory to Him. But likewise God would not want Christianity to be completely poveable as false. Then again there would be no faith.

I'm sorry, A Nairn, but that is not the Biblical view, but rather an admixture of Platonism and I'm not sure what else. Christ came down and absolved mankind of original sin. That is the view of Orthodox Christianity. If you love everyone, if you treat people the way you'd like to be treated (which Plato said, too), then you're fine.

Regarding your delineation of liberal and conservative Christians: your definition of "liberal" is Orthodox (aside from the Fall (itself an interpretation, as never once is the snake identified as the Sa-Tan) Jesus rendered obsolete much of The Old Testament (don't forget about all the slavery etc. in there, and that the Sa-Tan isn't a bad guy until The New Testament)), and "conservative" is what a Greek would label "barbarian," meaning, illiterate: you make noises with your mouth, "bar bar bar," but not everything you say makes sense. So I guess I disagree with Alex in NYC, too. "Christian Conservative" is an oxymoron not a redundancy.

A Nairn, I feel like I'm picking on you. I don't mean to. Let me put it like this. From the perspective of my cultural heritage (that coined "Christianity," let's bear in mind), just like Socrates came along and challenged all the mythological, pantheistic dogma of ancient, ancient Greece, Jesus came along and distilled Judaism into its purest essence--be wise: love one another; forget the letter of the law the Saducees and Pharisees bandy about sophistically that keeps them rich; follow the spirit of the law: love one another. When that tenet is not front and center, paramount and predomoninant, in the view of the people who shared their this religion with you, it's not Christianity being discussed, but something else.

post pics plz.

(xpost)
k thx.

"All Have Sinned and Fall Short of the Glory of God"
Romans 3:23

"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Romans 6:23

i agree. christianity requires faith. so does science. both theology and science are abstract constructs to describe real things. of course, science gets the boon of fairly observable and reproducable experiments to validate it's framework, but the farther we get along in math and science, the more we realize how limited we are in being able to continue in certain arenas. this is also comparable in theology. new christians are very "we've got it RIGHT!" and older christians tend to acknowledge that there are certain questions that we'll never have answers for. like evolution. neither science or religion is gonna have good proof for us there.

i'm not trying to be anti-rationlist here or anything. i'm just saying, let's remember our place a little. humility is still in order.

i don't think we'll ever reach that total, all-encompassing truth state as humans. from a christian pov, we aren't gods. and from a science pov, there's always going to be something slightly further out.

think of it in terms of language... there are always going to be those things that escape easy explaination, those mystical, romantic soft edges. i think that's what makes life interesting on both sides of the equation. you don't have to be anti-thetical to one to have the other. arational is not the same as anti-rational. it can coexist with the rational, etc.
m.

m, you're quite correct, we can never know everything about the universe, either collectively as a historical continuity but religion can shed no light on anything but the psychology, anthropology and sociology of human kind.

I think this is well-put:
just like Socrates came along and challenged all the mythological, pantheistic dogma of ancient, ancient Greece, Jesus came along and distilled Judaism into its purest essence

I had a conversation a few years ago with one of the most sincere, thoughtful Christians I've ever known -- an ordained minister -- where I just asked him point blank to justify the yawning gap between Christ's teachings and the behavior of many Christians. I also asked why Christians so often justified their views by referring to the Old Testament, if the whole idea of a New Covenant was really true. He acknowledged the contradictions and said that in his view, the New Covenant was something Christians were still working toward -- not always very well -- that it established a standard to aspire to, but one that neither the organized churches nor Christians as a whole had come close to yet. It wasn't a totally satisfactory answer, but it at least framed the issue in a way that made sense to me.

there is two separate realms here...

there's liberal vs. conservative christian with respect to politics...

and liberal vs. conservative with respect to theology/religious practices....

sometimes those things overlap, but sometimes they do not.

there are people that are very liberal with respect to their church worship/theology, yet are hearty gop supporters perhaps for money reasons, etc. (for example.)

a liberal christian can be quite taken with the bible and it's tenets. most christians think they are in fact. A Nairn, i resent your general assumption that calling myself a liberal christian means i'm taking the bad parts out. we read the bible at my church too. etc etc. we take the entire bible very seriously. it's just that we have come out with different conclusions or convictions about certain things. that's all.

x-post, sorry to bring evolution up...that's not a conversation i'm remotely wanting to start arguing. the point is... there ARE things science doesn't know for sure. to conjecture based on those things requires a certain degree of faith. an engineer building a bridge has faith in that the science will be successful. etc.
m.

but... witness newton's understanding of motion vs. einstein's.

see how we believe one set of things and those things are replaced by more precise descriptions in light of new insights. that's the angle i'm coming from.

we had atoms, then subatomic particles... sub-subatomic particles... etc....

and by heisenberg and einstein and godel's work, there are limits to our ability to observe and create axioms that bridge for all things.

i agree that there are different evidences and most would look at religion and sort of laugh. i'm a scientist and noah getting animals on a boat makes me cringe like no tomorrow, but i just let it go. what's life like on alpha centauri? i just let it go.

i have total respect for atheists. i understand where they're coming from. i just checked the box they didn't check on the form of life. is there any good empirical reason to check or not check that box? no. i think there's as much proof for god as there isn't.

i let it go. that's why i'm a liberal i guess. that's how i handle being pro-choice and for separation of church and state and etc etc... because my evidences are too personal. i wish i had better evidences. the best i can do is try to be nice. as much as possible. spread the love of god. i don't think that makes me lukewarm as a christian. you can't legislate and force the love of god down people's throats. forced love... that sounds all kinds of wrong.

m.

oh i know, yet bridges collapse don't they?
m.

i'm not trying to tirade against engineering and science. i make my living in that arena. i'm just saying tho.... there are limits to knowledge and even the most seasoned engineer will acknowledge that although they have done everything in their power to make sure what they have done is well within the usage parameters, unaccounted for details always occur.

that's all. snafu. we do our best and live our lives.
m.

hey m., you know any engin companies in the Pacific NW who're hiring? i needs me a tech job again...
i think the biggest thing is just not to be an asshole about what you believe, or what you choose not to believe.

good stuff.

(oh, pnw engineering... i'm not there anymore. i wish.)
m.

The Catholic Church certainly subsists in Christ’s Church as you point out. We believe that the Catholic Church is the visible living evidence of Christ’s Church, a concrete reality. We don’t exclude the possibility , especially of other Christians but also other faiths and non- believers of good will, from finding salvation outside the visible Church but in Christ’s Church through good works and dictates of conscience-even if they’re unaware of it, i.e. "invincible ignorance".

Yet "The Church” in its fullest, most true sense, has to be much more than a body of men. It must have a sacred dimension if again we are to take Jesus as a man who spoke the truth when he said the Church would for all ages is "the pillar and bulwark of truth"(1 Tim 3.15). Jesus Christ established The Church and promised to be with it till the end of time (Mat. 28.2) to continue his saving work. For all the terrible failings and evil actions of men acting in the name of the Church this promise allows Catholics to acknowledge we are sinners, and we are the Church; and yet the Church is holy. We only believe in what the Church teaches because we believe in Christ’s authority in the Church and that man can only be saved through Christ.

The Church has an obligation to teach ALL of what Christ taught. The divine union between Christ and his visible Church enables Christ’s teachings to be preserved free from error, developed as human knowledge increases, and taught in a manner suitable for the circumstances of time and place. I feel if one wish to be Christian then we must hold that truth cannot conflict with truth, yet for sola-scripture to have any basis I have to accept that truth is subjective- something I cannot do.
In Christ

I must ask American pragmatists where art thou!? Empiricists be gone! To quote the mild mannered Dewey (who rarely had a bad word to say about anyone) on Bertrand Russell “You know he gets me sore" .

Regarding original sin do you not think universal human experience confirms we all have inclinations towards evil, i.e. are we not all split within? Re- Old Testament, Christ did not make the old moral laws obsolete at all. Rather he ratified each and every one of them as well giving a new commandment of love. Maybe that’s what you’re getting at- that the Old Testament can only be understood properly in the light of this new law of love. St Paul- "the written code kills but the spirit gives life" (2 Cor.3.6)
St Augustine- "every letter of the gospel- the written moral precepts contained in it, would kill were it not for healing grace of faith present within" Using the language of the old pagan philosophers this new way of living was expressed as "virtues", evidenced in good works.

I struggle to understand how empiricists (contradictory?)"faith in love" can be reconciled, but anyway, it is essentially what morality and Christianity’s all about- as Galen stated. God wants us to be free, written laws and obligations are not really what morality is all about, in a sense Christ freed us from that mindset. ST Augustine summarized Christian morality as thus "Love and do what you will". In the final analysis the message of Christ is "written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God , not on tablets of stone but on the tablets of human hearts"(2 Cor.3.3)

I also don’t agree with you that faith and science are different ways of viewing the world, we don’t seem to agree on much at all! I do agree with you that most scientists work humbly in pursuit of "the truth" but I believe faith and science are different areas of inquiry that reveal different truths, and again truth cannot contradict truth. There can be no real conflict between faith and reason. Science enables us to understand natural events and processes- it has nothing to say about the origin of things, the nature of the sacred, the meaning of human life etc.

Peace!

I cannot see any conflict between evolution and creation. They are entirely different subjects. In fact, evolution demands creation. Evolution is the study of ongoing change in things which already exist, which had an origin at some point in time. Evolution does not attempt to explain the nature of that origin. However when scientists try to explain the appearance of "something from nothing" they invariably end up looking desperate and rather silly for their proposals all fall in the realm of science fiction not science. Champion of the “something (everything) from nothing” crowd , a Saint to the Atheist world for 65 years, well known philosopher Anthony Flew is the most recent public convert of the many ex atheist intellectuals who have examined this issue and come to a very different conclusion .

On the flip side and in the same basket are fundamentalist Christian sects who deny the obvious - that all created things change over time, and that over a long time things change a great deal. With this obvious fact apparent to any sane rational person they feverishly attempt to "find" scriptural "evidence" that the earth is not very old. We all know that the known facts on this matter are diametrically opposed to their private Biblical theories- spawned by agenda driven interpretations of Gods word. Alternatively they "find" scientific "evidence". Again creation "science’s nonsensical claims don’t impress anyone- accept maybe sci-fi fans.

The Bible tells us that God created and then stopped creating, this view is entirely compatible with the theory of evolution(as long as we don’t take a slavishly literal view of Genesis which is heavy in symbolic and poetic language) . Indeed it is the only theory compatible given we know through fossil records that new species have appeared continuously over time replacing previous species. This is an incontrovertible fact.

Evolution is not a "theory" because it has not been proven. It is a theory because it cannot be empirically tested and can therefore be "proven" only from ancillary evidence. The sheer volume and consistency of such evidence is suffient to prove the fact beyond any reasonable doubt. A parallel situation is atomic theory, which will always be a theory until such a time as we actually see atoms.

Finally the analogy that "faith in science = "faith in God" based on the premise that we can never be "certain of science" may have some philosophical validity and may be a useful in that sense, but to me it lacks practical honesty as to the real nature of casual laws on one hand and faith in God on the other. Clearly we know that the laws of science work, most of us have enough faith in science to accept gravity and not to leap off tall structures, we have enough faith in science to take medicines on the advice of a doctor, or allow ourselves to be sliced open for brain surgery etc. We do this because we know science *works*, even if "induction" cannot be *proven*. As Martin Gardner puts it "the patterns we find in nature are so strongly confirmed that we cannot disregard them without risking our lives...on the other hand an atheist gets along quite well, thank you, without believing in God".

Peace!

http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/calendar#485

Since when did believing in God and having moral values make you pro-war, pro-rich, and pro-Republican? And since when did promoting and pursuing a progressive social agenda with a concern for economic security, health care, and educational opportunity mean you had to put faith in God aside? God's Politics offers a clarion call to make both our religious communities and our government pro-justice, pro-peace, pro-environment, pro-equality, pro-consistent ethic of life (beyond single-issue voting), and pro-family (without making scapegoats of single mothers or gays and lesbians). Jim Wallis inspires us to hold our political leaders and policies accountable by integrating our deepest moral convictions into our nation's public life. Please note: This free event takes place at the First Baptist Church, corners of 12th and Taylor St., downtown Portland.

http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/calendar#490
In the history of the Western World, the Bible has been a perpetual source of inspiration and guidance for Christians — but it has also left a trail of pain. In The Sins of Scripture, Bishop John Shelby Spong boldly approaches texts that have been used through history to justify the denigration or persecution of others while carrying with them the claim that they were the "Word of God." Spong looks specifically at texts used to justify homophobia, anti-Semitism, treating women as second-class humans, corporal punishment, and environmental degradation, but he also delivers a new picture of how Christians can use the Bible today.

Excuse the delay but I bookmarked these pages before heading out bush but Ive got a camera now so we can all share the fun. Lucky buggers. Ha!

http://groups.msn.com/AustralianJourney/shoebox.msnw

I have just returned to the real world but I dont see the problem with *random* mutation /natural *selection*, re Christian concepts of time/space/ God- unless we place our own infinte knowledge on God, but can you elaborate ?

I find it harder to accept we are all just an accident vs special special.

Peace

ok thanks kingfish

I don't either. They just don't travel together as often as I'd like.

Jesus is given too much credit even by secular liberals.

he was more or less a garden variety ascetic in a time when such deluded men were common. his values were not all that revolutionary, they werent far off from what other frauds were teaching at the time. he was simply lucky to have died at the right place and time and to have inspired the right people to keep his cult going.

i really cringe when secular liberals claim to admire Jesus. his ideas he believed only because he believed them as the word of his fraudulent god.

we have moved beyond the need for religion. atheism is imperative. in fact armed struggle against believers is our only hope of true salvation from the ways of the god-frauds. science and reason be our "gods", and the truth be our light. what say you?

xpost

http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Satellite/1200/fg16.jpg

Obama OTM.

Jim Wallis, editor of the liberal Christian journal Sojourners and an organizer of today's protest, was not buying it. Such conservative religious leaders "have agreed to support cutting food stamps for poor people if Republicans support them on judicial nominees," he said. "They are trading the lives of poor people for their agenda. They're being, and this is the worst insult, unbiblical."

whereas most conservative religious politicos are gung-ho on the Calvinist/the rich obviously deserve their money:

...Dobson also has praised what he calls "pro-family tax cuts." And Janice Crouse, a senior fellow at the Christian group Concerned Women for America, said religious conservatives "know that the government is not really capable of love."

"You look to the government for justice, and you look to the church and individuals for mercy. I think Hurricane Katrina is a good example of that. FEMA just failed, and the church and the Salvation Army and corporations stepped in and met the need," she said.

Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, said the government's role should be to encourage charitable giving, perhaps through tax cuts.

"There is a [biblical] mandate to take care of the poor. There is no dispute of that fact," he said. "But it does not say government should do it. That's a shifting of responsibility..."

Yup, and we all know how prevalent popularly-elected, representative governments were in biblical times...

Wrong.

Jesus is given too much credit even by secular liberals.

he was more or less a garden variety ascetic in a time when such deluded men were common. his values were not all that revolutionary, they werent far off from what other frauds were teaching at the time. he was simply lucky to have died at the right place and time and to have inspired the right people to keep his cult going.

i really cringe when secular liberals claim to admire Jesus. his ideas he believed only because he believed them as the word of his fraudulent god.

we have moved beyond the need for religion. atheism is imperative. in fact armed struggle against believers is our only hope of true salvation from the ways of the god-frauds. science and reason be our "gods", and the truth be our light. what say you?

-- Rectal Messiah (latebloomer), Friday, June 3, 2005 5:32 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

worst troll ever

dunno...makes a couple of good points. the armed struggle bit is loopy, kill everybody that believes in god?

atheism is imperative. . . armed struggle against believers is our only hope of true salvation. . . .

Up-is-down. Ignorance is bliss. Capitulation is strength. Merry Christmas.

the reason it's a bad trolling is because it's so obviously not sincere

a.nairn, for all of his faults, was an exceptionally talented troll. he actually got people to engage with him because he never lost his cool.

like Data the android, I am slowly learning about human nature

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v113/General_K-Star/dataBSOD.gif

I know you're right about nairn, but I don't miss him.

oh don't get me wrong, i don't want him back either.

the NYT thought it was a great idea to give a bunch of space to David Brody, CBN journalist, author of The Teavangelicals: The Inside Story of How the Evangelicals and the Tea Party are Taking Back America, and new The Faith of Donald J. Trump: A Spiritual Biography, and somewhat well known for his softball CBN interview with Trump about a week after he was inaugurated.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/24/opinion/sunday/donald-trump-evangelicals-president.html

i already know that many evangelicals support trump because as long as he opposes abortion, literally nothing else he does matters at all. i'm always more interested in the blatant hypocrisy angle, so here is Brody's take on it:

Critics say that the Trump-evangelical relationship is transactional, that they support him to see their agenda carried out. In fact, evangelicals take the long view on Mr. Trump; they afford him grace when he doesn’t deserve it. Few dispute that Mr. Trump may need a little more grace than others. But evangelicals truly do believe that all people are flawed, and yet Christ offers them grace. Shouldn’t they do the same for the president?

Which begs the question: THEN WHY DO EVANGELICALS HONE IN ON THE PERCEIVED "FLAWS" OF EVERYONE WHO ISN'T A DEMOCRAT WHILE IGNORING THE FLAWS OF ALL REPUBLICANS, EVEN GOING SO FAR AS TO SUPPORT A CHILD MOLESTER LIKE OOZING ACNE BUBBLE ROY MOORE? a few paragraphs later, this is his answer to that:

Does Mr. Trump have moral failings? Yes. Critics will suggest a hypocrisy coming from evangelical leaders who are quick to denounce the ethical failings of others who don’t have an “R” next to their name. But the goal of evangelicals has always been winning the larger battle over control of the culture, not to get mired in the moral failings of each and every candidate. For evangelicals, voting in the macro is the moral thing to do, even if the candidate is morally flawed. Evangelicals have tried the “moral” candidate before.

Jimmy Carter was once the evangelical candidate. How did that work out in the macro? George W. Bush was the evangelical candidate in 2000: He pushed traditional conservative policies, but he doesn’t come close to Mr. Trump’s courageous blunt strokes in defense of evangelicals.

i think the downfall of the NYT is slightly exaggerated, but they sure are publishing an increased amount of total bullshit recently

important to note that it's not just abortion but the white nationalism. the evangelical community in 2018 is little more than a white identity movement. and i guess in lots of ways it always was.

I became a Christian this year and this holiday music at the bar (too early?) is hitting diff

Why would you convert? What sounds point to the existence of a merciful god? I’ve reached a point where I seriously doubt the existence of the historical Jesus

I'm curious about the same thing from a different perspective... without prejudgement, I'm kinda wondering about what led you to convert - what your story is, how things changed for you (if you've talked about it on another thread, it's cool if you just link to that one). I do have friends who are Christians, and it can be a difficult thing to talk about sometimes, just because there's so much judgement around that belief system in general.

Well I read this book “urantia” and it really spoke to me.

Oh gotcha. Yeah that's the thing about Christianity, there are so many different kinds... in my own life I'd compare it most to being asexual, weirdly enough, in that saying I'm "asexual" in and of itself isn't something I can communicate to others. Coming to it through the Urantia book, to me that's really different from being a Christian conservative! Honestly it's kinda why I don't call myself a "Christian" myself, even though my beliefs and views are very strongly inspired by Christianity, just because, like, what that means in the world at large is so different from what my personal beliefs and views are.

What sounds point to the existence of a merciful god?

I love this question, I assume it's a typo, but I'm also a Christian and for me sound itself but also many individual sounds point to the existence of a kind and merciful God

Yeah see, I was going to respond to that question with "early period Van Morrison"

"What sounds point to the existence of a merciful god?"

John Coltrane.

I too came back into the fold recently.

I've been wondering who self-identifies as "Christian" on dating apps in 2024.

Seeking mature woman into pegging, improv comedy, and T.D. Jakes

i know that's a joke, but the taboo against men bottoming in patriarchal christian culture, the _shame_ directed at men who bottom, that shit is real and it's fucking painful to see. cishet guys who bottom, to me, that's one of the clearest examples of "patriarchy hurts men too"

I’m not really joking or shaming anyone. Christianity creates guilt and self-hatred. It’s stunning to me that people would embrace a faith that revolves around a man who likely never existed in the first place

a man who likely never existed in the first place

Worth noting that this is a very fringe view among scholars.

It wouldn’t surprise me if it became more widely adopted. All signs point to him basically being a composite of multiple people

I love this question, I assume it's a typo

Wait what is the assumed typo? I read it as asking what holiday music was playing at the bar, I feel so dense

“Signs” instead of “sounds”

on the question of "did the historical jesus exist"

i'm neither a biblical scholar nor a professional historian so i can't speak to things from that perspective

having said that, i will point out a couple of things

first, there is little evidence for the existence of a historical jesus. having said that, there is little evidence for the existence of _most people_ in ancient history. second, jesus in his lifetime _simply was not as important_ as christians make him out to be. i remember once seeing a striking christian billboard - the text said "WHO SPLIT TIME?" and there was, i recall a lightning bolt. jesus didn't _actually_ split time. in his day, time was measured in different ways. so yes, there's little evidence of the historical jesus, but there's no reason there _should_ be.

i will also say - this is my personal belief - the question of whether or not a historical jesus existed is just not that important to me. i know that not everybody believes that. when i was young, i went to mass, and father brendan got up and gave the homily and said that if it could be proven that jesus did not bodily rise from the dead, he would kill himself. that was the moment i stopped being a catholic. father brendan was not right in the head.

i also know that there are a large number of people who insist they believe that the bible, every word of it, is literally true. these people are mistake. any clever bastard can point that out, can say "oh yeah, what about fabrics made of two different fibers", "what about where the bible says this particular animal chews its cud when it factually doesn't", "what about the bits that contradict other bits". no. they don't literally believe the bible is empirically true in every respect, no matter what they say. i don't think those people are _lying_. i just think they're mistaken.

i feel like... i feel like i grew up in an empiricist age, one that says that nothing is true unless it is supported by objective, empirical evidence. and to me, there are... different kinds of true. i don't think that christianity is true in the same way that physics is true. the jesus who matters to me isn't the historical jesus, isn't the jesus who is _real_ in the same way that my ex-girlfriend is. there are just... things that are important to me that there isn't evidence for.

my go-to on this... it's controversial, but i feel it's less controversial than talking about jesus. there's this question that transphobes will ask a lot - "what is a woman"? they want certitudes, they want empirical evidence, they want _facts_. i talk to other trans people about it, and they do think that they're the gender they are in the same way that cows give milk. i know some people who badly want there to be evidence. they want to have a "gay gene".

and if you ask me "what is a woman?" i'll shrug and say "someone who says they're a woman". why am i a woman? because i say i am. i mean, so what if i'm not a woman? maybe i'm "actually" a man, maybe i'm just a man who feels a lot better, a lot happier, a lot more _alive_, being treated by the world as a woman and seeing myself as a woman.

that's kind of how i feel about jesus. christianity, i feel like it's as much of a social construct as gender. that doesn't mean it isn't _real_, that people who are inspired to do good, that people who find meaning and solace and purpose in it are fools. i have problems with institutional christianity, problems serious enough that i can't in good conscience call myself a christian. believing that the literal historical paul wrote letters which, in objective terms, he didn't write, which, in objective terms, are what's known as "pseudepigraphia"... that's not one of those problems.

“Signs” instead of “sounds”

The thrill and ecstasy of spontaneous subjective experience, in that case?

Honestly it's kinda why I don't call myself a "Christian" myself, even though my beliefs and views are very strongly inspired by Christianity, just because, like, what that means in the world at large is so different from what my personal beliefs and views are.

Do you feel like telling a bit about your personal understanding of Christianity and how it’s influenced your values, worldview or beliefs? By any chance.

After years of defending Christianity on the understanding that, as you say, there are so many different kinds, I’ve recently turned more hostile. Not from an empiricist perspective, of course, but an animist one (it helps to be reminded that people find meaning and solace and purpose in it).

Do you feel like telling a bit about your personal understanding of Christianity and how it’s influenced your values, worldview or beliefs? By any chance.

After years of defending Christianity on the understanding that, as you say, there are so many different kinds, I’ve recently turned more hostile. Not from an empiricist perspective, of course, but an animist one (it helps to be reminded that people find meaning and solace and purpose in it).

― Deflatormouse

hmmm. complicated question.

i did genuinely wonder, for a long time, why i was even born, what possible purpose there was to it. my life sucked and i didn't particularly find any value in being alive. religion was the only thing that really tried to answer that question. i was raised catholic, liberal catholic (not sure there's still such a thing, but there was then), and that was the lens through which i tried to answer the question. and i heard the scriptues, i went to church every sunday, and some of them stuck with me. "the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone", that's one that stuck with me a lot. i never really felt like i fit in, like i belonged anywhere. and to me, christianity was made for people who didn't fit in, the outcasts, the weirdos, the freaks.

i also thought the message of christianity, what it said in the gospels, that there was a lot of good stuff in there. the basic message of the gospel, as i understood it, was love god and love other people. i never really saw a problem with that. mostly i was confused that so many christians were so bad at that. i also looked at the scriptures to try and figure out what it means to be human. because people change so much over time. what's true today isn't necessarily what was true yesterday. so i could look at these ancient texts, and even though there was a lot about them i didn't really understand, i could look at things that people believed thousands of years ago, things i believed today, and that was important to me. that said something important to me about what it means to be human.

around 17, i left the catholic church because they taught a bunch of things that were harmful lies, because they were hypocrites, because i couldn't respect them. and i went through a bunch of other beliefs. i was an atheist for a spell as well. around the age of, i don't know, 36 i came back around to christianity. i was looking for something stable, something that had purpose and meaning, a place where i could find community. and since i lived in indiana, that meant finding a church. a mainline protestant church. very accepting. one of the clergy there was a lesbian, though she didn't talk about it much because a lot of people in the congregation would be upset if they knew.

this time around i connected with the concept of god's unconditional love. i struggled (and struggle) a lot with low self-esteem. being able to say that the most powerful being in the universe loves me, finds me to be valuable, wants me to be happy... well, who was i to argue with that? it was a good church, but it was dying. a lot of the mainline protestant churches have been dying for a long time. and just like with the catholics, there were a lot of things they didn't talk about. the person who was a lesbian didn't talk about being a lesbian. they didn't talk about where they got their money from. they didn't talk about why the person leaving the choir suddenly left, except to say that what they did "wasn't illegal".

more than that, they talked about being open to anyone, but it seemed to be more and more that being "open to everyone" wasn't really possible. i wasn't out at the time, but i had a hard time thinking of people who preached hatred and bigotry in god's name as my "brothers and sisters in Christ". what could i do, though? tell them they were wrong, that jesus didn't say that? on whose authority? who would listen to me?

i figured, you know, if god let people say these things, do these things in his name, and did nothing... well, he's responsible for that. whatever my values, whatever my beliefs, i couldn't in good conscience call myself a christian. because so much of christianity is also about the promise of justice. if injustice is being done in god's name, and god doesn't stop it, and i don't have power to stop it... that promise is empty. whatever i believe... as a catholic, i was taught that faith without works was empty. i knew the scripture that said of christians "by their deeds you will know them". (i think that's a scripture.) the good that christians do - people can do those things with or without belief in christ. the evil they do - a lot of that seems very specific to christians.

a lot of who i am, what i believe, is rooted in what i have learned from christian teachings. christianity, though, is not a belief to me - it is first and foremost a _community_. it's not a community where i belong. i seek community elsewhere.

this is fascinating to me!! how literally do y'all take this? like full on son of god, died for our sins, rose from the dead? or more like taking inspiration from jesus as righteous proto-hippie, respecting sex workers and yeeting money changers out the temple?

does your faith come up a lot in your daily lives, or is it more to help when huge terrible things happen?

how does it affect your behavior, your thoughts, your emotions? for the recent converts, has it changed how you live?

if any of you would be comfortable talking about exactly what the tipping point was for you (if there even was one; maybe it was a gradual revelation?) i am so curious to know!

i grew up lackadaisical presbyterian/episcopalian but don't remember actually believing in any of it. i very clearly recall sulking on one of those plastic fisher-price rocking horses in sunday school while the other kids gathered to hear bible stories and eat graham crackers, and feeling terribly scornful of their credulity. i was a bit of an asshole at the time. maybe bible stories would have helped!

after reading antonia white's novels i briefly thought tormented catholicism might be cool, but it didn't take

then i tried reading the bible for its literary merit and when i reached the part in genesis where God Himself tells women to fuck off and die i basically threw the whole canon in the trash.

cal do you still squish mice with bookshelves or do you just bean them with the new testament these days

i have to admit my first thought was that cal's super random doozy of a bookshelf with the miami vice vhs tapes and the photos of kowloon etc as pictured in the relevant thread now has the urantia book on it too

I’m not really joking or shaming anyone. Christianity creates guilt and self-hatred. It’s stunning to me that people would embrace a faith that revolves around a man who likely never existed in the first place

― beamish13, Sunday, November 3, 2024 12:16 PM bookmarkflaglink

this last part is just wrong - there is definitely historical record of a Jesus who was put to death by Pilate for insurrection. not much else was written about him, but even secular Bible scholars that are not of the faith have conceded he existed. the rest is the debate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Jesus#:~:text=Biblical%20scholar%20Bart%20D.,%2C%20sometime%20during%20Tiberius's%20reign.%22

That is correct, Tacitus mentions the execution and Pilate specifically in the Annals.

Jesus and John the Baptist are also mentioned by Josephus. And there were kind of a lot of Messianic Jews around that time! It just seems like it would be unnecessary to completely make one up

xps sorry if this is a little rushed, since I might have to ghost the entire internet for weeks or months: thanks for taking the time to respond Kate! it's not the most reassuring response, on the whole. idk what I was expecting.

i never really felt like i fit in, like i belonged anywhere. and to me, christianity was made for people who didn't fit in, the outcasts, the weirdos, the freaks.

this part really surprised me. I had no idea anyone thought or felt this about Christianity, I was kind of astonished. But it makes sense! "God loves you" - that tracks

I was also really surprised to hear that the communities have changed so much in our lifetime, I wasn't really under the impression that things were better in living memory, or maybe ever.

i feel like... i feel like i grew up in an empiricist age, one that says that nothing is true unless it is supported by objective, empirical evidence. and to me, there are... different kinds of true. i don't think that christianity is true in the same way that physics is true. the jesus who matters to me isn't the historical jesus, isn't the jesus who is _real_ in the same way that my ex-girlfriend is. there are just... things that are important to me that there isn't evidence for.

tbh i can only see faith and science as two sides of the same coin, and Christian doctrine as deeply intertwined with the Greek psyche/body, matter/spirit dualities that regard the bodily world as a mechanical prison.

tbh i can only see faith and science as two sides of the same coin, and Christian doctrine as deeply intertwined with the Greek psyche/body, matter/spirit dualities that regard the bodily world as a mechanical prison.

― Deflatormouse

i fucked around with gnosticism afer reading dick when i was younger... the thing is that i never really bought into the idea of a mind/body split, which is impressive considering at the time i was suffering from severe gender dysphoria giving me persistent dissociation and depersonalization (meaning that i didn't feel like my body was my "me", that it was a meat sack i carried around with me). i just couldn't with dualism, which is kinda weird considering how given i am to all or nothing thinking haha

this is fascinating to me!! how literally do y'all take this? like full on son of god, died for our sins, rose from the dead? or more like taking inspiration from jesus as righteous proto-hippie, respecting sex workers and yeeting money changers out the temple?

does your faith come up a lot in your daily lives, or is it more to help when huge terrible things happen?

― twenteeth dentury (cat)

i don't take it literally at all! one of the reasons i don't call myself a christian is that my actual beliefs are well into the realm of what would be called heretical by most christians. i struggle to even talk about it because it makes me sound quite insane. i do suffer from severe mental illness but i'm not out of touch with reality.

i guess what i'll say is... when i'm trying to figure things out in my life, when i'm struggling with questions of right and wrong... i have this kind of image in my head of jesus, i can imagine really well what jesus would say, kind of like, what i've been taught about jesus, what i've read, my understanding of jesus in my head. like, nothing supernatural is going on. i don't believe the immortal son of a judean carpenter (or a roman soldier named pantera or whatever) from 2000 years ago is manifesting himself to me. i honestly don't believe in god or jesus at all, in a factual sense. who i am, the society in which i live... christianity has been so important in my life, so important in the lives of so many people in america, that i can't make sense of the world around me without recourse to it.

i will sometimes have these conversations that i think of as "conversations with jesus", not in some kind of prophetic or divine sense. religion is _ordinary_ to me, it's kind of an ordinary presence in my life. my favorite part of the church year was what they called "ordinary time". i'm a big fan of ordinary time. so for instance... this is something i get frustrated with a lot, when i get frustrated about christians i'll sort of talk to jesus about it. i complain to jesus a lot about him not doing enough smiting. i mean i guess he's a "proto-hippie" in the same way that, like, billy jack is. "i come to bring not peace, but a sword", cursing trees to never again bear fruit because it didn't have a pomegranate when he wanted one. shit like that. anyway i say jesus, why aren't you doing more smiting, and jesus comes back and says "kate, you know that's not how i do things". i mean he's right, if jesus did happen to be real it's not like he'd send a lightning bolt from the heavens to strike down rick warren and say "YOU HAVE MADE MY TEMPLE INTO A CHARNEL HOUSE" or something like that. i mean that seems a little out of character for him.

but it's not like... i mean, christianity is really complicated and doesn't make sense, it's often contradictory, it means so many things to so many people, it means so many contradictory things to _me_. i do think about things like meaning, purpose, right, wrong, i think about this stuff a lot. and sometimes religion can help me make sense of them, and sometimes religion can kinda stop me from overthinking.

my beliefs are honestly syncretic. there's some stuff from buddhism that i practice, there's... it's kinda weird. i don't think of myself as a practicing witch, i just feel like i'm culturally a witch. like one day a couple years into transition i woke up and realized "huh, i guess i'm a witch now". i kinda think of transition as some magical ritual i did. not, like, that it's literally magic. i mean it's basically science, or at least it would be IF THEY WOULD DO SOME MORE FUCKING STUDIES ON THIS STUFF, sigh. it's more the experience of becoming something i thought was impossible. like yeah i _could_ describe it entirely in empirical terms but i feel like that kinda falls short, it doesn't really do justice to how weird the whole thing actually is, the ways in which i've actually changed, even if none of it is actually supernatural. that's kinda how i feel about any of my "spiritual beliefs" or what have you.

ultimately though i do think there are just, basically, different ways of looking at the world. the empirical, evidence based way of looking at things, that's the only one that's real in a, like, concrete sense, but that doesn't mean there's not value or meaning to me in looking at things from other perspectives. and i haven't really read the lotus sutra. i haven't read, i don't know, starhawk or whatever. if i'm gonna view the world through a lens, christianity is going to be the main focus, because i've lived all my life in north america, because i've grown up under certain circumstances. job on suffering, ecclesiastes on, i don't know, philosophical pessimism, revelation on batshit crazy, the pauline epistles on how to live in radical community. bill fay and and johnny cash and dave bixby and the texas-jerusalem crossroads. jorge ben singing "brother". the uncanny sound of sacred harp singing. it's just... everywhere, all around me, whether i like it or not.

i guess if there's one thing that encapsulates christianity more than anything else for me it's psalm 137. it's probably the second most famous psalm, after the 23rd psalm. psalm 137 is "by the waters of babylon..." that one. the melodians, of course, but so many people have done settings of it. well. of the first two stanzas. the third stanza... that's where it turns brutal and vicious, where the psalm praises as "blessed" anyone who murders babylonian children. it's shocking and brutal. you go from this elegiac, beautiful song of loss and yearning to, well, _that_. it confounds me. it confounds me that these two things can exist in the same song. but that's the world i grew up in, that's the faith i grew up in. that's christianity, in a nutshell, right there.

(i know that's not a christian scripture but i've only ever read it in a christian context. judaism looks at those scriptures differently than christians do, from what i've seen. i can't really judge or evaluate psalm 137 from that perspective.)

anyway i say jesus, why aren't you doing more smiting, and jesus comes back and says "kate, you know that's not how i do things". i mean he's right, if jesus did happen to be real it's not like he'd send a lightning bolt from the heavens to strike down rick warren and say "YOU HAVE MADE MY TEMPLE INTO A CHARNEL HOUSE" or something like that. i mean that seems a little out of character for him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewTnjqV_hxA

Misread that as “Rick wakeman”, uhh, multiple times :D

anyway, there's a lot in this post I can relate to. this is much more what I was asking about wrt your personal understanding of Christianity, thx

i don't think of myself as a practicing witch, i just feel like i'm culturally a witch. like one day a couple years into transition i woke up and realized "huh, i guess i'm a witch now". i kinda think of transition as some magical ritual i did.

I loved this!! technically, I've been initiated into a Gardnerian coven forever ago, but i don't think of myself as a witch. except that I find it very easy, and perfectly *normal* to shift between different, uh, "dimensions" I guess. I relate v much to what you said about "ordinary time". I looked it up. this stuff, to me is totally banal. I *certainly* don't consider myself a Wiccan or pagan- if I was going to label my "spiritual beliefs *or what have you*" (and I like the "what have you" a lot), then I consider myself a bioregional animist. I would stress, though, that most people who *do* self-identify as witches don't believe there is a supernatural aspect to magic or spirituality, but I def think they would recognize transition, and your mobilization of will out of necessity, as a textbook magical act.

And I suspect, though I haven't researched this thoroughly or anything, that the concept of "supernatural" is largely a Christian construct based on the remote/disembodied spirit. I don't believe in anything supernatural, I just don't think actual nature is prosaic, predictable, mute, or unconscious. The "unconscious" part in particular is where I find myself most at odds with what I know about the Christian world view (and, if I'm honest, ilx. lol)

lol at calstars' complete absence since bumping this thread

'i like carols in the bar now'

'can't wait to anger my relatives at thanksgiving!'

'i can shit on people i hate and you can't gainsay me because jesus'

darling Deflatormouse, keep your head up sweetheart

thank you for your response, Kate! ima try to type up a proper [synonym for response] but if i get too lost in my words and end up posting nothing i want to at least express my appreciation. you are a rad witch for christ, and one of the best posters to grace this borad imo

otm

cat, I'm feeling pretty good! actually I am soaring these last few days.
I hope you type up that synonym, because I always look forward to reading your words when you and they show up here.

calstars at 3:44 2 Nov 24

Well I read this book “urantia” and it really spoke to me.

did a little googling and this seems like some crazy bullshit

certainly reading it hasn't made him reconsider being an unfunny drunk guy

Why should he be different than any other Christian?

thank you for your response, Kate! ima try to type up a proper [synonym for response] but if i get too lost in my words and end up posting nothing i want to at least express my appreciation. you are a rad witch for christ, and one of the best posters to grace this borad imo

― twenteeth dentury (cat)

aww, thanks so much :)

re: urantia - i was in a ufo cul-- "new religious movement" back in the '90s and i learned about a lot of... less mainstream religious traditions - i think that's where i picked up on the urantia book. i remember it as being said to be a "channeled" text, written unconsciously. kinda similar to the 1882 book "oahspe" produced by an american dentist. anyway, the urantia book, sun ra got into it for a while and passed out pages of it to people. bernard paganotti, former bassist of magma, seems to have been into it as well. there's this amazing jam called "une parcelle d'urantia" on his 1995 "paga" album, originally written for weidorje's never-completed second album. can't recommend it strongly enough.

i'm, honestly, not inclined to judge people solely on the grounds of their cosmological beliefs. i think all of this stuff happens within a certain context. i mean i grew up catholic, being taught that when i take communion i am literally eating the flesh and drinking the blood of jesus christ. on paper that's kind of weird, but a lot of people do it and don't seem to be any worse for doing it. again, i got issues with roman catholicism as an institution, but the doctrine of transubstantiation isn't one of them. did i ever believe that i was literally eating the body and drinking the blood of jesus? quite honestly, no. couldn't muster the suspension of disbelief necessary to buy that. did it _personally inspire me_, the doctrine that something can look like something to all appearances, seem to be something by every measurable scientific standard, and be something else entirely? yes. yes, it absolutely did. i was never one of those "wrong body" type of people, but the idea of change as a holy act - transfiguration, transubstantiation, _transness_ as sacred - yeah that's a pretty core part of my belief system!