Fundy Christians Are Against Cures For Disease Because Life Is Supposed To Be Miserable.

[TheMastersNemesis]

Last edited Thu Oct 16, 2014, 07:21 PM - Edit history (1)

When I was a practicing Catholic the main meme was that life was "a vale of tear". Life was supposed to be unpleasant and challenging. Pleasure was forbidden. We had to sacrifice and suffer like Christ did. Disease, suffering, pain and death were admirable and even desirable because these conditions were Christ like. You were suffering to enjoy the "afterlife" in heaven if you lived as a proper Christian.

Today's fundy Christians pretty much believe the same thing. So being against something like stem cell research or science that might cure disease or make a person's life bearable is against religion. Disease, death and other life tragedies are punishment by God for the fall of Adam and Eve.

To them this life is all about preparing yourself for an afterlife. That reason is why Christians do not care if the world ends or if their is pestilence, famine etc. That reason is also why they do not care if we trash the planet. The sooner we kill ourselves off the sooner Christ will return.

[Lars39]

1. Got 'em pegged!

Last edited Thu Oct 16, 2014, 07:30 PM - Edit history (1)

[Dont call me Shirley]

2. Oh Gawd we must suffer with the endless suffering because we are all sinners from hell

Those are the words of the devil

[freshwest]

3. Hell, TMN. Being brought up that way was worse than being a Baptist.

Last edited Thu Oct 16, 2014, 08:15 PM - Edit history (2)

There was a time when the leaders support choice and kept their noses out of politics. And we were told to enjoy the blessings of God, not wait for rewards in the hereafter, which were symbolic and etheral, not in the physical realm.

What sufferings we had were something to work to mitigate, and the medicine, like science were gifts from God to give us better lives and we should use our talents for others. As far as abuse from other human beings, such as murder, settling that was in the hands of the Creator.

But we were for treating workers good as the Bible said to give fair wages, take care of the young, the poor and to not hate the emigrant, or be greedy. They also didn't talk about sex, evolution or school prayer. That was government business, not theirs.

I am sorry that you got that toxic stuff. Now corporate churches teach that line, and it's destroying the world. We are supposed to do what is right, and that in itself is what our joy is in this life. Not flagellating ourselves for a hereafter.

Churches I went to even argued about the nature of what it would be like, and didn't give us a list of things we had to do other than love Jesus and each other. The world changed and not for the better.

BTW, I am no longer in any church for this reason. I cannot find any comfort or solidarity with that I am seeing going on now. And just about everyone I know calls themselves recovering Catholics and Baptists...

[TheMastersNemesis]

4. It Was A Toxic Undercurrent In The Catholic School System.

I remember students being admonished almost 24/7 about being prepared for sudden death by having a proper confession and being in constant grace "i.e. free of sin". We were always reminded what mortal sin was and every kind of sin you can even imagine. by the time I finished at a Catholic college I realized is was all bullshit.

It took a long time to get rid of all that garbage. A person simply cannot live a live being so paranoid all the time. The fundy churches are very much like that in that the after live whatever the hell that is is more important than present life.

It is like pain and suffering must sought after as a badge of honor. I wonder what is being taught in the Catholic schools today or what is left of them. I am sure little has changed.

[freshwest]

6. That is a terrible burden on someone to be taught that, and a major restriction on what we called

Free Will. It sounds like not being responsible for this life and one's action, except to please a psychopathic deity with impossible standards to meet. A recipe for failure.

I am not able to get into that kind of thinking, and I guess I was fortunate to not be brought up that way. It sounds like your folks had to have really been into religion to send you to those schools and that college, too.

I attended public schools and universities and all religion was treated in my family like a choice. We had one Catholic (she was wound pretty tight) some Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Unitarians and just plain atheists.

I might add, my Catholic step mother would say things as you mention. If we were sick from a migraine, she said it was from sin and even said 'Jesus was watching' if we dipped into the cookie jar. Even at a young age, I had decided she was nuts.

She'd keep on looking for us to do something wrong, like a warden, and if we had nightmares she said that we were demon possessed. One of her threats was to send me to Lutheran school for some reason, to get some kind of discipline, but my dad said no and wouldn't let us near a Catholic church. He didn't believe we needed that or to be forced to go any church at all.

I see now where she got that stuff, she was full of fear and thinking of being punished all the time.

Our family also thought that all religions, or lack thereof, were equal and leaving it to the person to choose is an American value. I know some good people who have fled the theocracies in the ME and moved here for that reason.

We never argued about religion, that was a private, individual matter. We were big on boundaries, with a few failings at times. I think a community that sees religion as a choice and not a complete reality, is more healthy than the theocratic view that is gradually being voted in to rule us all.

People will not realize what they had til they've lost it, and what we have took hundreds of years to get to anything like the secular government we have had here in the USA.

I have seen some of that pain and suffering honor at times and it seems to come from ignorant people, not the educated ones. Maybe we are from a different era, TMN, and the way things appear to be going at times it won't be long until the American people will not even remember what we were trying to have here.

[TheMastersNemesis]

7. Despite The Indoctrination The Catholic School System Gave A Great Education.

The Catholic Church undercut itself by educating us too well in other ways. The intellectualism and self introspection eventually led to independent and critical thinking in the end. I will bet that most of my peers gave up their religion over time. I did at 23. And getting a BFA in drama also helped.

It has been ironic in a way that a system meant to keep us all Catholic in the end most likely failed. Buried in the core philosophy and the theology were the seeds of its own destruction. And personally I have moved beyond all that brainwashing so long ago.

[beam me up scottie]

5. My ex has known he was going to hell since he was a kid.

His loving born-again mother made sure of it, thanks to her his life here on earth has sucked.

What kind of parent does that to their kid?