OH smack...this is PERFECT! "Biblical Bullying"--what a perfect turn of words

[Horse with no Name]

This is in response to someone who asked if others were willing to die for their faith.

http://www.topix.com/forum/city/paris-tx/T4HA5DG96F3JU3ISF#lastPost
So you empathize with suicide bombers who die for Allah?
Interesting.
This is a problem with organized religion.
I am a Christian but I do not see the perceived persecution that some of you see--at least not in this country...nor do I anticipate it any time in the near future. But then again--I don't look at every action of every person as a perceived affront to myself personally. In fact--there is a psychological term for that type of thinking and there is adequate medication for it. It is called "paranoia".
There is a faction of Muslims who are willing to die for their God. They generally take out as many of those that are not willing participants in their paranoia...all under the guise of "willing to die for their God". There is an uprising of Christianists in this country who do not follow the Bible as it was intended--but instead, use it as a weapon to fight their perceived injustices and cherry pick passages to "prove" their way of thinking. Biblical Bullying is a great term for this.
For instance..."Thou shalt not judge" is rarely given a second thought. Christianists want to judge gays, lesbians, non-Christians, politicians, etc. as if they were the divine entity themselves rendering judgement.
"The Lord sayeth let vengeance be mine"...yet so many Christianists believe in the death penalty.
Let me differentiate Christianist thinking vs. Christian thinking.
Christianists know the words and can spout them. They don't live by the Biblical tenets of forgiveness and love and peace...yet they cherry pick verses they want OTHERS to live by.
There IS a shortage of REAL Christians, especially in this area. REAL Christians know that Jesus was about love and peace and doing unto others--no matter what is done unto you.
It is about making the world a better place and loving your neighbors as you love yourself, regardless of their faith or their sexual orientation or their race or any other yardstick others use to decide worthiness of another person.
I do not believe Obama is the Messiah nor has he ever presented himself as such--I think the meme and the self-fulfilling prophesies of those who ascribe themselves to the thinking outlined in Revelations are nothing but hyperbolic fearmongerering Christianists who are agenda-driven.
I think the best bumper sticker I have ever seen said it best "Jesus--Please save me from your followers". Amen to that.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Good stuff

[BlooInBloo]

2. On the alleged christianist/christian distinction...

insofar as it's pushed by christians. It exists for one reason and one reason only - to absolve christians of their at least passive and at most active support of their shittiest teammates, but simply giving some of them a new name. And more, the tactic means christians aren't obligated to do anything about their shittier teammates going forward. Why? Because "they're not REALLY christians", of courses. Neat trick, huh?

Such a tactic has all of the advantages of theft over honest toil, as some bright guy quipped almost 100 years ago.


EDIT: Sentence to nowhere snipped.

[annabanana]

3. How do you suggest we go about shutting them up?

They take orders from no Pope. They grow their own ministers.... Aside from denouncing them at every available opportunity, what would you do?

[BlooInBloo]

6. Christians DO NOT denounce their shitty members often at all....

Instead what they typically do is defend their own inaction by saying variants of "it's just a few bad apples", or "there's crazies in every group".

It it of course perfectly obvious why christians don't take serious steps to renounce their shitty teammates - without the shitty ones, christians would have no "shock troops" to do their dirty work. You know, like putting bigotry into the California Constitution.

Kudos to christians - they really have done a pretty damn good job after they lost the science wars. They're trying to go backdoor to take on science again via CULTURE. It was working pretty well for a good long time - Americans are getting laughably stupid on average, at this point. But the little problem arose: public backlash against the most effective of christians' group.

So the challenge was to figure out a way to continue using the services of the extra-crazy christians, but in a way such that christians don't get blamed for it. The solution? Simple: call them something else. Voila! Let "christianist" be christened. And the true beauty of the plan is that it REQUIRES Americans to be as stupid as they are in order for it to work.

:rofl:

[annabanana]

8. a few bad apples my ass. . . they are legion and they are VERY

bad for America and the rest of the world.. Fundamentalism is a disease, a mass psychosis, I don't care which religion it springs from...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. How do you know that mainstream Christians DON'T fight the fundies?

Perhaps you are unaware that every major denomination is fighting fundies within its own ranks who are egged on and encouraged by right-wing foundations and the right-wing press.

The worst of them, though, are self-proclaimed "ministers" who answer to no denominations and who appear to be in it strictly for the money and power. They are literally a law unto themselves, and they teach their followers to fear and suspect mainstream Christians. Their theology is based more on their own personal hang-ups (especially the gay bashing) than on anything in the mainstream Christian tradition.

Mainstream Christians have no more control over the free-lance fundies than the Democrats have over the Lyndon LaRouche types, who call themselves "Democrats."

[Horse with no Name]

4. I think the differentiation between their God and MY God is important

so they should be differentiated as well.

[BlooInBloo]

7. Ok. It's all angels on pinheads, so divy them up however pleases you best.

[DeSwiss]

14. Right on!

[NC_Nurse]

5. I love this. Bookmarked for this holiday season.

Thanks! :hi:

[pacalo]

12. So did I.

It was a little hard to read, though, so I made some spacing/grammatical changes :hide: for easier reading:


So you empathize with suicide bombers who die for Allah?

Interesting.

This is a problem with organized religion.

I am a Christian but I do not see the perceived persecution that some of you see -- at least not in this country -- nor do I anticipate it any time in the near future. But, then again, I don't look at every action of every person as a perceived affront to myself personally. In fact, there is a psychological term for that type of thinking and there is adequate medication for it. It is called "paranoia".

There is a faction of Muslims who are willing to die for their God. They generally take out as many of those that are not willing participants in their paranoia -- all under the guise of "willing to die for their God". There is an uprising of Christianists in this country who do not follow the Bible as it was intended, but instead use it as a weapon to fight their perceived injustices and cherry pick passages to "prove" their way of thinking. Biblical Bullying is a great term for this.

For instance, "Thou shalt not judge" is rarely given a second thought. Christianists want to judge gays, lesbians, non-Christians, politicians, etc., as if they were the divine entity themselves rendering judgment.

"The Lord sayeth let vengeance be mine," yet so many Christianists believe in the death penalty.

Let me differentiate Christianist thinking vs. Christian thinking.

Christianists know the words and can spout them. They don't live by the Biblical tenets of forgiveness and love and peace, yet they cherry pick verses they want OTHERS to live by.

There IS a shortage of REAL Christians, especially in this area. REAL Christians know that Jesus was about love and peace and doing unto others -- no matter what is done unto you.

It is about making the world a better place and loving your neighbors as you love yourself, regardless of their faith or their sexual orientation or their race or any other yardstick others use to decide worthiness of another person.

I do not believe Obama is the Messiah, nor has he ever presented himself as such. I think the meme and the self-fulfilling prophesies of those who ascribe themselves to the thinking outlined in Revelations are nothing but hyperbolic fear-mongering Christianists who are agenda-driven.

I think the best bumper sticker I have ever seen said it best: "Jesus -- Please save me from your followers."

Amen to that.

[hyphenate]

17. A fellow liberal I know

gave me that same bumper sticker for Christmas one year, and I didn't read it carefully, and thought she wanted me to become a Jesus follower. It wasn't until I had stared at it numerous times before I realized what it was actually saying. It's on my van now, and has been for awhile. :)

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. My Christian brothers and sisters,

and my Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Native, and Pagan brothers and sisters all know that we are on many paths to the same Goal. There is only God, no matter what God concepts are held. To show this, we abide by the teachings of our path--mine is the path of Love and tolerance.

[tavalon]

10. I made the mistake of going over to look at that stuff

What a blast from the past. I am so glad to be past that crap. I was raised Southern Baptist (from age 13 until 19) but I left in early adulthood and boy am I glad. I felt a sense of unease with it way back then but it's even crazier than it was.

[lonestarnot]

11. But I don't like my neighbor. He doesn't like cats and he

doesn't like dogs either. And he's a piglicon. Snort. :puke:

[RedLetterRev]

13. There's a big reason I ditched religion

in favor of faith and walking a path of gentleness a long time ago. I can't and I refuse to try to fit myself into a mold of any religion. I can't take the screaming. I can admire Jesus, The Great Spirit, Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, The Lord and The Lady, Sri Tara, Lord Krishna, or any other estimable Aspect of Something Greater with equal aplomb and equal ease and equal reverence. I don't think any human being has a lock on Absolute Truth, That's just me. I think anyone who says they have a crystalline understanding of Absolute Truth is probably absolutely crazy, to wit: the Christianist wackogelical fundamentalists and the Muslimist fundamentalists.

There's a reason the middle part of the word is "mental". Just sayin'. Our home-grown bunch are doing everything to prove they're as "ment'al" as it gets, starry-eyes, gibberish, and all. How can anyone be so vile and call that religion? I can't. Unless the god they worship is some sort of devil-trickster. I find that scary and evil.

Any two people can stand on a mountaintop and watch the sun come up and dapple creation below and find a numinousness in it. Anyone can look up at a wonderfully clear night at zillions of stars, comprehending that the heavens go on and on, and feel very tiny yet very comforted. You don't have to name It to love It, whatever It is. Anyone, Christian or not, can read the Gospels -- all of them, not just the four synopics -- and see that most of all, Jesus had good damn horse-sense. Just plain, good, walkin'-around sense. Dude was smart, learned, and kind. There are plenty of resources to go read up what he had to say, like 51 Gospels, most are fragmentary. Whether or not he was divine is debatable. He still dispensed plain good sense.

Last thought on the subject: If anyone tells you they either have Absolute Truth or that they know the Mind of G'd and they're going to tell it to you -- keep your hand on your wallet.

Everyone has their own Way. This is just mine. An it harm none, do as ye will.

[Nihil]

21. Nice post.

> Any two people can stand on a mountaintop and watch the sun come up and
> dapple creation below and find a numinousness in it. Anyone can look up
> at a wonderfully clear night at zillions of stars, comprehending that the
> heavens go on and on, and feel very tiny yet very comforted.
> You don't have to name It to love It, whatever It is.

Very well phrased - thank you.

:toast:

[DeSwiss]

15. Excellent!

- K&R!!!

[struggle4progress]

16. The Nazarene's ideas about the Last Judgement have little to do with conventional morality:

And as a shepherd the King separates them, sheep from goats, to the right or to the left. And to the one, He says: Come, blessed; inherit the kingdom prepared at the root of the world. I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared, in prison and you visited. And the righteous answer: When did we feed you or give you drink? When did we welcome or clothe you? When did we visit you? And He replies, What you did to the least, you did to me. But to the other, He says: Depart, accursed, with the fire of the devil's angels. I was hungry and you fed me not, thirsty and you gave no drink, a stranger without welcome, naked and unclothed, ill and in prison, and you did not care. And the unrighteous answer: When did we fail to feed you or give you drink? Or fail to clothe you or visit you? And the King replies, Whenever you did not for the least, you did not for me.

[DeSwiss]

19. And the Nazarene also said:

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" (Matthew 22:37-40 NIV).

- But even those words above, attributed to Jesus, weren't original. Whether or not he even said them. And it ain't these kinds of words that concern me about Christian morality. Its those others.....

[bluesfan1000]

20. Deuteronomy 13

I am waiting for a Christian fundamentalist group to emerge who follow deuteronomy to the tee. Now that would start a terrorist organization.