The following comment makes exactly as much sense as this fashion choice. Now, pull your eyes away from the shiny red codpiece and read the post.
I don't get PZ's amusing emails, but I do occasionally get amusing comments, always on old posts, for some reason.
This comment is from a post in May, Act Now to Receive the Antichrist:
I believe in the one God the Father, maker of the heavens and earth.
Does that ever bring me back. If you're from a Protestant or nonChristian background, that's the beginning of the Nicene Creed, which is recited at every mass. Considering that I attended Catholic schools exclusively, I attended mass 6 days a week. I probably said that thousands of times. Actually, the official Catholic version is I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, but wow, blast from the past for me.
One needs to only look around and see his beauty. I surely don't believe that everything came from evolution but there is a divine power at work in the creation and the future.
So, you're scientifically illiterate. Good for you. I look around and see beauty, too, I just don't need an invisible superpower to make that amazing.
The problem lies in the free will God gave us all and the ability to interpret it. Over time mankind has abominated God's promise and turned it into their own self-fulfilling idea of what they want without regard to their fellow man.
You know, your god is supposed to be omniscient. That means he knows everything that will ever happen. Why give us free will if he knows that the inevitable end of that is a great many of us hurting ourselves and each other and then spending forever in hell. Think about that for a second. Really think about that. God knows that free will ends with millions suffering an eternity of torment and does it anyway. This god of yours really isn't a very nice guy, is he?
Humankind lives for one thing and one thing only - themselves. Witness the cruelty, strife, wars, torture and unspeakable things man has forced on fellow men.
Sure. Witness also the art, the music, the selfless acts of love and generosity as well. We're bad, sure, but we're good, too. And religion has done nothing to end the cruelty and strife. If anything, religion has encouraged war and unspeakable acts (see also: Crusades, The). And the greatest torturer of all? Your god, for giving me the free will that will land me in hell.
God gave us his promise that if we but believe in him and his Son we will escape what is coming (look around) as long as we keep faith.
*looks around* Um, what's coming?
Yes we will be persecuted but God will protect us and reward us. The rest of the world will, literally go to HELL forever.
Again, your god is a douchebag. The biggest douchebag of all time. And you're a douchebag for enjoying his douchebaggery. Wait, I'm sorry, DOUCHEBAG.
Put your hormones aside and look inside for reason and faith.
My hormones? Atheism is hormonally modulated? What . . . I don't . . . what the fuck?
Too many of you will not make it to the other side and scoff those of us believe it to be true. It's not too late.
For what? Also, I do believe hell is the other side, the undesireable other side, but the other side nonetheless. I've never understood the promise of "eternal life" Christianity makes so much of. According to you, I get eternal life either way, you're just promising a less physically painful eternal life. (I gotta tell you, eternity praising God is just as unappealing to me as an eternity of torture.)
Anyway, Arthur, so long and thanks for all the lulz.
Wow. Just... wow. I went back and read the comments for that post, and...
ReplyDeleteThere's a handful of topical responses from around the time when it was written. Nothing happens between May 8 of '09, and January of 2010. Then there's this whole bizarre conversation that's been taking place over the course of this past year. I'm guessing people have been doing searches on Mel Sanger's name, and landing here?
It's very odd. Every now and then I get an email alert about a comment to a post I can't quite place. I'll go and look and it's from at least a year ago. It's always fundys threatening me with hellfire and damnation. I guess fundamentalism causes one to be unable to read date stamps?
ReplyDeleteWell, the Christian Music scene is generally... what, about a decade behind secular music? So maybe they're reading on special Fundamentalist Browsers that only show posts from a year or two back?
ReplyDeleteYour guess is as good as mine.
ReplyDeleteI was going to say the same as Michael. Some very enlightening reading on that old post. I lulled.
ReplyDeletethat was...
ReplyDeletei REMEMBER that whole thing - i had specifically called my friend who is a freemason to tell him about it [he'd been bitching up a storm about people saying Obama was a freemason plot. "don't take this the wrong way" he said, very softly, trying to NOT let Pete hear it "but we're not stupid, plus most of the guys on top are still racist to some degree. they'd NEVER help a black man into power like this, not for anything"
and then, of course, the random people who drank the wine [get it? not koolaid, wine... gah, i'm EXPLAINING my jokes]
i do feel bad for you, sometimes, PF. all that hatred aimed at you, by people who are REQUIRED to love you. so, all that hatred and hypocrisy. funny, how those two seem to be siamese twins, na da?
[ps: THE SLAP CHOP!!!!!!! gods, everytime i see it, i WANT IT. but not for it's "intended" purpose *EG*]