It may not seem so to some, but there is a thread running through these 6 statements. I’d love to see some of our god fearing Christians visitors to take up the challenge and explain what they think I got wrong, and why. I’ve labeled the paragraph to help organize it.
Cheers, Good night
A) I mourn every time I hear of a new pregnancy, but I glory in the magic of the infant,
(and growing child) this constantly growing awareness of self and world. A thinking being who’s already developed a base personality during its gestation, and who by virtue of surviving all the hurdles of pregnancy, climaxing in surviving birth, takes on the mantle of “Personhood.”
B) There are so many layers of complexity going there, but it seems the God Fearing Christian, in particular the Right to Life Hippocrates are absolutely blind those layer. All they see in a fetus is a symbol to be turned into a political power bludgeon.
C) Likewise, when I think about Christian’s attacking Evolution, I think what in God’s name is wrong with you people, look the fuk around you. All life we know of starts as a speck, only to evolve according to the environmental conditions that help it survive, or not.
D) Evolution is everywhere, you could even conceive of it as fractal in nature, folds within folds of harmonic, cumulative complexity flowing down the cascade of time. From viruses to critters to creatures, to that ultimate creature of destruction humans.
E) It took billions of years to create the blueprints that constructs us during those first 9 months and beyond. After all the human is born rather premature. That stuff is infinitely complex and beautiful and fascinating,
{And to the rationalists, enough with obsessing over the boring “beauty in physics”, how about the fantastical beauty of what our planet is, and the evolution that created the life support system we destroying as fast as possible.? ? ?}
F) Instead you Christians seem to want one dimensional postcards and dreams of afterlife, after, your real life on Earth is finished. Boy are you suckers for the likes of Trump and other predator who’ve got you by your privates.
This is a challenge to all or anyone, to go after the above, how would you expose the errors of my ways?
Blasphemy
Description
Blasphemy, as defined in some religions or religion based laws, is an insult that shows contempt, disrespect or lack of reverence concerning a deity, a sacred object or something considered inviolable. Some religions consider blasphemy to be a religious crime. Wikipedia
Blasphemy is punishable by death. Riddle me that one also.
I have seldom met a Christian who was a deep thinker. The last profound statement was directed at my wife, accusing her of being anti-christ because she is democrat.
No meaning full exchange can be had with such abberant thought process.
Of course it can’t. And? Dealing with folk, lumpen, unreasoned chaos is best done with a self deprecating surprised, agreeable laugh. Shooting hydra in a barrel, down a rabbit hole, just proliferates them at every bifurcation.
I am not a christian or a religious man, and i would be between an agnostic and an atheist.
But one cannot assimilate every christian to the fanatics, narrow minded bigots who are too much present in politics and medias. I could easily add some other depreciative adjectives.
There has been christian philosophes, writers, historians and scientists. One can disagree with them, one cannot accuse them of shallowness.
The shallowness is projected by the Bible itself and gets even worse in human hands. When I drive and surf channels I get my doses of Christian preaching and I’m absolutely stunned by it’s down right ugly hatefulness.
Listen to the Christian version of creation, its a one page cartoon, then look at all we know about Earth’s origin and evolution.
Look at Jesus’s Passion Play - Christians reduce it to: “God so love blah, blah”. Acceptance of the cross as your magical key to afterlife “salvation” - done, fine. Another one page cartoon.
Totally missing that Jesus Passion is a distillation of the human struggles in life, that we as individuals must endure during our lives.
The Bible’s obsession with us humans, makes total sense when it comes to creating civilization and order within larger populations of humans - but that’s purely a utilitarian thing and did absolutely nothing to teach human’s an ounce of respect or appreciation for the pageant of life unfolding on this planet next to us.
As our current drive towards utter self-destruction makes clear.
And what’s that supposed to mean - are we supposed to smile and simply accept Christian horrors???
As i have told before, i have a nephew who is a Jesuit priest. I asked him if one should read the Bible as a literal trust. He answered that the Bible could be read as a poem, as a myth, as a symbolic story, but that it should not be read as the literal truth, or then with the utmost precaution.
And, yes, some fanatic bigots, Catholics included, use the Bible as a weapon. don’t generalize, please.
Something I see you do often CC is mixing your themes. Is this about abortion, evolution, environmentalism, or politics? I guess it’s about how those relate to and lead to shallowness, encouraged by religious thinking. There is a lot of use of “they” and a little too much “absolute” for me.
Christians, creationists specifically, make the argument that you can ‘just look around’ and see the beautiful world and that is evidence for God. Not very convincing. It’s also not a convincing argument for evolution. Evolution is not obvious. It requires time scales beyond one person’s ability to observe. And you top it all off with an insult, the worst way to engage anyone on anything.
So, you get accused of projecting. Not sure where the logic is with that either, but it’s to be expected. I don’t agree with MPC’s suggestion either, to just laugh it off, that’s been tried, and has not worked out.
CC, I’m not going to try to untangle one of your interpretations of Christian teachings, rather, I’ll say, generally, the fundamentalist approach is rather recent. Its roots are around the 4th century, when literacy rates in Europe were in the single digits, but after a few centuries, humanist philosophy can be found in Christian writing. That there were also inquisitions reflects all our struggles of good and evil, not just Christianity. The recent incarnation of “Fundamentalism” began about 120 years ago with the pamphlets titled “The Fundamentals”. Even the ones who use that propaganda don’t want you to know that.
Well, that was long post. Bottom line, when critiquing something as big as “religion”, it helps to focus on where the problems lie. And like anything, find the specific flaws in the logic, and the bad data.
Isn’t this one of the best arguments against religion? That they argue amongst themselves? Academics argue their theories all the time, but that’s not an argument against scholarship. The difference, one is claiming answers then arguing, the other is open to questions and arguing relative probabilities.
Yup Lausten,
That was in reaction to some superior Christian garbage I got to listen to. Stuff that makes my insult the height of tame, so I did come out swinging.
Why are we supposed to simply stand by and accept the theatrical Christian victim act being laid out in every American political arena these days - too many Christians are demanding it’s their right to hate with a viciousness that bets all.
Oh, but the second we react, it’s our problem, we are the guilty ones, cause Christians are sinless in their own eyes. At least I know I’m not holier than thou and am capable of recognizing I can be real prick if you push me around, but I’m also willing to listen to others, to learn and modify my perception, whereas todays Political Christians are all about the absoluteness of their position and grotesques disregard for the others real life stories.
Worst, in this entire existential mess, is how easy Christians are with lying and misrepresenting and bullying others, all the while paying the victim card - and their total rejection of rational learning or dialogue. …
I’ve watched the American Christian nation taken over by trump’s deranged totalitarian mentality, one that demands a total rejection of America’s Pluralistic Promise and that’s intend on turning neighbors into enemies. Pretending there’s nothing there is worse than occasional flaming.
Yes, I tried too hard, to do too much, in too short a window of opportunity. I’ll try to refine what I’m trying to get across when I have some time for myself next week.
(Oh, and to be clear, those different items are like links in the same chain.)
Go listen to Christian radio, you will find it faster than you dare imagine, all on your own. That’s the best I can do for now, but you know I’ll be back.
But if anyone would care to do some research on their own, go and google “Christian Right and trump” and start going down the list of news stories.
The president isn’t known for his faith. Instead, author Sarah Posner says he connects with Evangelicals by voicing the legal, social, religious and cultural grievances of the Christian right.
This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. Why has the Christian right embraced Donald Trump, whose values and lifestyle seem at odds with the values espoused by Christian right leaders? That’s the question that Sarah Posner tries to answer in her new book “Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship At The Altar Of Donald Trump.” Her previous book, “God’s Profits” - that’s profits as in P-R-O-F-I-T-S - is about prosperity preachers. Trump’s spiritual adviser, Paula White, is a prosperity preacher. Sarah Posner is a journalist who writes about the intersection of religion and politics and has covered the Christian right for about 15 years. She’s currently a reporting fellow with Type Investigations, which was formerly known as The Nation Institute.
SARAH POSNER: Well, there are a number of people around Trump and his evangelical advisory board, people like Paul White, who you’ve mentioned in your intro. There are others outside of that particular circle who kind of filter in and out. So Paula White, Ralph Reed, who leads the Faith and Freedom Coalition, Robert Jeffress, who’s a prominent megachurch pastor in Dallas. There are some other less-well-known figures who helped perpetuate this idea that Donald Trump has been chosen by God - Lance Wallnau, Frank Amedia. These are people who appear in the book who very much believe that Donald Trump is anointed by God, or the phraseology that some people would use is that God’s hand is on him.
Come on CC, you know that I know what you are talking about. Every time you do this, people here remind you of the distinction between Ken Ham and Barbara Brown Taylor. People who rarely post come out of the woodwork to say it. Some of us will also mention the futility of attempting to engage the extremists. It can be done, but not with the language you posted here. And when someone suggests the slightest edit, you fall back on “what are we supposed to do, sit back and do nothing?”
I don’t barge into fundamentalist churches on a Sunday and for the same reason, I don’t spend much time having this conversation with you.
Sir. Has anything? Does anything? The self-deprecating laugh is to maintain the relationship. Confrontation - even saying that one can’t agree, that we have different epistemologies, claiming equality, level of view - just drives people deeper in to their rabbit holes. I’ve never met one inviting me in to theirs - and I have close, very close, beloved family members happily, angrily, deludedly, at home, lost in their warrens - who wants me to help them build a better home.
