Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Wondering

Do you ever wonder if the purpose of evangelism is something other than converting people to Jesus? I'm not talking about the slacktivist "hey, I've got a really nice religion here and I thought you might like it" form of evangelism, I'm talking about the Asshole for Christ(tm) form of evangelism, as demonstrated thusly:

Deuteronomy 16:19 Just for fun, I looked up Deu 16:19. This is it: Do not pervert justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous. What the hell does that have to do with pagans, or the hateful diatribe that follows?

Pagans are blind, eyeless, sightless, unseeing, dark, purblind, stone-blind, dim-sighted, undiscerning, okay, i get it, you own a thesaurus. will you stop now? oh, and "dark" is not a synonym for "blind". i think you just called black people ignorant savages. nice. ignorant savages savages? really? do they where loincloths? do they hunt with spears? do they [fill in your own condescending stereotype]? who spit at not in? not enough distance? God's face everyday without contention, remorse or contrition, ummm . . . "contention"? these words, i do not think they mean what you think they mean no matter how 'good' they think they are. It is sad really. like this post? What pagans do not know will hurt them most dearly. They are just like a multitude of blind ignorant savages heading for a cliff. they're not just blind, they're not just ignorant, they're savages! Even though they are profane savages, what is your obsession with a word that is loaded at best, and more likely racist? for way too long, native americans were referred to as "savages", you probably want to abandon this Christians still should love them enough to warn them, with fear, about the cliff to come.

so, picture this with me. "Hey, you, yeah you! You, the ignorant, blind, savage! You, darkie! There's a cliff over there! Stop it you remorseless, purblind savage!"

Christians need to make them tremble a bit. oh, i am indeed trembling before your vast command of synonyms. Pagans must tremble before Mount Sinai before they fling themselves on the cross at Mount Calvary. huh? you need to work on your imagery. Some Christians would say it is rather harsh to call non-Christians blind ignorant pagan savages. so would some atheists. and doubtless all pagans, but why ask them? But it is biblical. so is rape, murder, incest, slavery and genocide. are you suggesting we enact those biblicals as well? These verses are from the New International Version okay, if you're not going to cut and paste the entire verse, you don't need to tell me which version it is. it's the language that changes, not the verse numbers. and i'm the atheist.

Isaiah 2:6 - refers to Jews who palled around with pagans, not pagans
You have abandoned your people,
the house of Jacob.
They are full of superstitions from the East;
they practice divination like the Philistines
and clasp hands with pagans.

Isaiah 2:5-7(in Context) adds nothing to the discussion Isaiah 2 (Whole Chapter)

Matthew 18:17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector. not sure how that helps.

Matthew 18:16-17 adds nothing to the discussion

Leviticus 26:6 'I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove savage beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country. what the hell does that have to do with pagans? was he picking verses at random in the hopes no one would look them up?

Leviticus 26:5-7 (in Context), still not seeing it. could someone loan me the secret decoder ring? Leviticus 26 (Whole Chapter)

Acts 20:29 I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. i dunno, maybe. probably not.

Isaiah 45:20 Gather together and come;
assemble, you fugitives from the nations.
Ignorant are those who carry about idols of wood,
who pray to gods that cannot save. well, we finally found the word "ignorant", though that's more ignorant about yhwh than ignorant in general

Isaiah 45:19-21(in Context), Isaiah 45(Whole Chapter)

The term non-christian is a word for those who do not want to possibly sound like they are condemning pagans. or an accurate description of people who are not, wait for it, christian. jews are not pagans. muslims are not pagans. atheists are not pagans.

John 3:18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. yeah, most religions do set up some sort of us/them dichotomy with rewards for us and punishments for them. what else is new?

says that pagans are condemned already. i will grant you that. Christians do not have the power to condemn the rebellious, even if they tried. oh, but you wish you had it, don't you? But they can show the unrepentant that they are condemned. by calling them as many names as their thesaurus can spew out. The Ten Commandments are what they need to hear. because somewhere in the US is someone who has never heard the ten commandments, and if you just show it to them, they will get on their knees to jesus. Some say if Christians show the Ten Commandments to sinners, it is unnecessary because they are damned if they do, and damned if they don't. i couldn't even follow this thought. They would be right, that is why they need Jesus' blood to wash away their iniquity, transgressions, and sins forever, ew! not merely to cover them up like the Jewish people still do today through animal sacrifices. really. Jews perform animal sacrifices? today. uh-huh. yeah. right. oh, dear, it's an antiSemite. nice. Christians have enormous liberty. to call people names?

Yeah, it just ends there. I suppose once you've gone for the antiSemitism, you may as well call it a day.

9 comments:

  1. um...
    well, look, the first commandment is "Thou shall have NO OTHER God before me"
    which kinda really says that there are other gods, but you can't worship them MORE than you worship YWHW (or however he is spelling his name this centry)
    and i am NOT ignorant, and iam certainly not a SAVAGE. i mean, i may be half cherokee but i WEAR CLOTHES and I BATHE and i don't RANDOMLY KILL PEOPLE. i kill people very non-randomly.

    oh, fuck it. this guy hates me because i believe that god is infinite and omnipotent and is therefor quite able to present herself to me as a Goddess and to someone else as a God and to someoneELSE as a lawn-mower. i hate people who try to limit god.

    and are athiests now supposed to be pagan? i mean the original meaning of the word "pagan" was a religion that was not roman, originally CHRISTIANS were pagan because they did not worship as rome did...

    thank you for this, i think i will avoid this guy. deliberatly avoid him.

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  2. Yeah, i had to defend my pagan brethren. Lawnmower? Holy hand grenade! Sorry. Yeah, pagan doesnt really mean anything anymore, and it never was too specific. I know youre pagan, but that tells me nothing of youre beliefs. ( iphone typing is hard!)

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  3. iphone typing IS hard.

    if you want to know more, i'll tell you... but only if you ask. not because i am trying to be bitchy or whatever, but because i reallyreally REALLY believe that it is wrong to proslytize to a person who doesn't want to hear it. so unless someone asks, i don't explain. it's me trying to be polite.

    "lawnmower" is from this hilarious book i used to have entitled "God: The Ultimate Autobiography". God was explaining that well, YES man was made in his image, but that he is omnipotent and it was just chance that had him being a bipedal mammal that day; only the week before he had created a race of biological lawnmowers in a different galaxy :) it's a very funny book, and i recommend it to EVERYONE. they have it at amazon: http://tinyurl.com/a3agdk

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  4. have to get that book!

    And tell me! The best part of the interwebs is meeting people NOT like me and learning something new.

    I studied African aborigine myths for a while and I love their stories and find their religion fascinating. There is also some striking similarities to NA myths that, if I had the money, I would make my dissertation in comparative mythology. Ah well, Internet snarker is a good job, too

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  5. ok... short synopsis:
    please remember that this is partly what i was taught as a child, but i have thrown wicca and a few other things on top.

    Ban-draoi literally translates as "woman druid" and the portion of my family that follows this path generally accepts that this REALLY meant "city druid" or "town druid" or even "village druid", as in a regular druid cares for the land, ban-draoi cares for the people.

    God is god is goddess is Athena is Fray is Shiva. god is infinite in all ways - all powerful, all knowing, all loving. god will appear to each person in the way most acceptable and understandable to that person. every religion is just a reflection of god attempting to interact with each person. "God is everywhere and everything; religion is the pair of glasses you use to see god"

    our first duty, as bad-draoi, is to each other. and by that we mean our first duty is to humanity. before god. or, really, as PART of god. god is us, we are god, we each are a tiny sliver of god (our souls are a tiny portion of god, that is). we are called on to do three things.
    help each other
    learn
    love

    we have very few negative ideas (sins) and those mostly follow one of two tenants - do not attempt to control anyone, and do not attempt to hurt anyone. every sin i have EVER heard listed comes down to one of these two things, and to be honest i still think they are really the same thing, and the Wiccan rede says it better.

    every day is holy. but we cannot treat EVERY day as holy, because we would lose the meaning of the word "holy". so, on specific days we do specific things to celebrate life and god(/dess/es)
    my family generally follows the 4 (Beltain, Lughan, Samhain and Yule. other parts of my family do the Christian eqivilant of Easter All Hallows and Xmas. strangley, most of my actual close family are either pagan, xtian or athiest. i only have 1 first cousin who worships cherokee fashion. strange. i think i just now realized this).

    there are tools. but they are just that - tools. any worship is to some extent just a period of time to reflect on self, how self interacts with the world/god/etc. and worship is ALSO worship of self. if tools are to be used, they should be dedicated to the specific use during worship (not used otherwise) to make it easier for the mind to seperate worship out from everyday things. worship is supposed to be holy, therefore anything that one uses to be holy needs to be dedicated to holiness. doesn't matter what it was before, but once it has been used in worship it should ONLY be used in worship - but you should ALWAYS remember that the TOOL ITSELF is NOT holy, merely a reflection of self and one's idea of what one needs to reflect upon god.

    also- reincarnation, but everyone judges THEMSELVES. and sets up what they think they need to know in each life. "lessons" in a karmic way, so to speak.

    erm. i think that that is (more!) than enough to start on. and i'm not sure if it seems too repetitive?

    let me know if you want to know more, or less, or have any questions. my email (again) is denelian@yahoo.com

    and yeah, we specifically ALSO think atheists are also a reflection/piece of god. but however they want to live is perfectly fine, so long as they don't try to force it on others. which, in my opinion, most athiests DON'T try to force their beliefs on others, so i tend to think most athiests are MORE godly. hows that for weird irony?

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  6. also, thought i would mention
    the first person in the family who we can PROVE worshipped this way/followed this religion is my great-great grandmother, who apparently converted her brother in law, and raised all her children this way. my great great grandfather died Christian. we don't know if she got it from her mother, or other ancestor - most of my family thinks "yes", i think maybe she got some of it, and got the rest from Gardiner. its a Great Family Debate :D

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  7. you know, i could get behind that. i think part of my problem with religion is that i'm just not wired for the random hating. (despising people who do things that piss me off, sure. Teh Gayz, no.)

    and, i don't mind that you consider me a part of god. that's not offensive. in fact, it seems like it would prevent you from hating any group, even if you don't agree with them.

    "i'm praying for you" on the other hand, is practically a threat.

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  8. well, we do believe that all hatred is essentially self-hatred - in almost every instance, when someone hates another, or a group, what they really hate is that they see something of themselves reflected in that other person or group. good example - one of my sisters i really really dislike, because is stuck up and snobby and self-centered; she is, in fact, a lot of the things that i try really really hard to get rid of from my own character. and i dislike her because she looks like i would look if i weren't trying so hard to NOT look like that.

    quote i stole from Heinlein: "religion is about the priests first, the people second, god never". i know i don't have the wording right. but yeah, most religions end up twisted around and used as an excuse for hating. hell, i know a couple of people IN MY FAMILY who use the fact that we try to help everyone and try to never stop anyone from doing what they want to hate christians, who they percieve as never really helping and always trying to oppress. so even my nice pretty family religion gets (in my opinion, anyway)misused for Hate.

    i agree with the "praying for for you". i mean, if someone cries on someone, and someone offers a prayer, that is nice - but random stranger, and only because s/he doesn't exactly agree with you? it really sounds like they are saying "I am praying for you to be sent to Hell".

    but, over all, i think that being ban-draoi is pretty good; i mean, we specificly allow other faiths to be part of ours (well, i grant that other faiths probably don't see it that way. but we all really think that every religion is SUPPOSED to be a reflection of godly love, and since every religion CAN do this we sorta claim them all lol. really, my favorite bit is the fact that we are supposed to be all inclusive and not hate anyone.

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  9. Yeah, I have a sister like that, and I think she makes me uncomfortable because I can see myself going that way if I'm not careful.

    I definitely think an unasked for "I'm praying for you" always has the addendum of "to suffer for ALL ETERNITY" (because god is love).

    I realized I like being told I am a part of god (though I don't believe in god) because you think god is the greatest thing ever, therefore, you think I am a part of the greatest thing ever. What a compliment!

    I think you are as awesome as Fallout 3!

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