Crazy things famous Christians say

[Arne Saknussemm]

That Harry Potter image comes from Bettybowers.com. Bettybowers.com is an atheist website pretending to be a Christian website. Like "Landover Baptist", it "parodies" Christians (and calls what it does "humor"), then other atheists will proceed to quote it as if it was really the work of Christians.

Yes, if the purpose of this thread is to insult Christians, once again, I want to know which Christians the OP means. I am one, and I loved the Harry Potter series. it's not great literature, but it is very imaginative and a fun read for children and adults. Like most people who love books, I lauded Ms. Rowling for getting young people interested in reading again in the age of video games.

Sure, self-righteous rednecks who take everything literally really seemed to think Harry Potter was going to hell - I wanted to point out to them (but I knew they would be too hard-headed to understand) that fictional characters in children's stories CAN'T go to Hell.

Having said all that, I remember reading a British review of the series wherein the book critic asked, when they have the Christmas banquet at Hogwart's - what exactly is it that they're celebrating?

Wouldn't they view Jesus Christ much as chickens view Colonel Sanders? The worse scourge ever?

Those who have read 'Harry Potter' know that the witches and warlocks were comically ignorant of the 'muggle (non-witching) world. They called electricity, "ekeltricity', didn't understand telephones, and would wear get-ups like yellow-plaid sports jackets, leather pants and swimming flipper when they wished to move incognito in the mainstream muggle world. So what would they know of muggle religious faith?

One might think Halloween would be right up their alley, but I think not. Their take on Halloween would probably be more like the time I took some Italian tourist ladies to San Francisco's North Beach district. North Beach bills itself as a 'Little Italy', but my Italian friends found it faux genuine and quite laughable. We left after ten minutes. I think they might have even been offended except that they must have realized I meant no harm, and had honestly thought they would enjoy the place. silly me!

So our Halloween costumes and our take on the witching world probably just leave Harry and his friends puzzled. As Ron Weasley, might comment, "Mental!"

 

[gmilam]

That Harry Potter image comes from Bettybowers.com. Bettybowers.com is an atheist website pretending to be a Christian website. Like "Landover Baptist", it "parodies" Christians (and calls what it does "humor"), then other atheists will proceed to quote it as if it was really the work of Christians.

While that may be true, there have been cases of (primarily) Evangelical Christians denouncing and even burning Harry Potter books in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_debates_over_the_Harry_Potter_series

Off topic: Am I the only one who thinks the satire sites have gotten out of hand? At times it can be very difficult to tell the satire from the serious. (Ignoring the idea that satire can be serious.)

 

[Arne Saknussemm]

While that may be true, there have been cases of (primarily) Evangelical Christians denouncing and even burning Harry Potter books in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_debates_over_the_Harry_Potter_series

Off topic: Am I the only one who thinks the satire sites have gotten out of hand? At times it can be very difficult to tell the satire from the serious. (Ignoring the idea that satire can be serious.)

You're not the only one. Me too! When I googled to learn more of the purported 'fake moon landing', I was reading for fifteen minutes before I realized it was a satire on those who belive Armstrong's trip was a lie. What tipped me off was that a close-up of Armstrong's famous first lunar footprint had a Nike logo, and how they showed there was a photographer in a trench coat with a flash camera reflected in Armstrong's helmet face mask.

Another time I googled 'the rings around Uranus'. My advice: don't go there!

 

[Yazata]

It is not a frequent practice, at least in normal countries and it is untrue that Christians necessarily believe everyone goes to hell who is not a Christian. You seem to have been talking to fundamentalist Protestants, some of whom, I think, do believe that.

That's one of the most active areas of discussion in contemporary Christian theology.

There are basically three schools of thought:

1. The Exclusivists argue that only the Christian worldview is correct and salvation can only be achieved through Christ. These beliefs lead them to the conclusion that only Christians will be saved. I believe that this one is most prevalent among Protestant evangelicals.

2. At the other extreme, we find the Pluralists. Pluralists believe that all religions are fundamentally correct, that each of them simply offers a different perspective on one single transcendental truth. That leads to the pluralists' belief that salvation is possible through many different paths. My impression is that this one is a minority position among Christian theologians, though it has vocal champions and has made inroads among some of the more theologically liberal Protestant denominations.

3. And in the middle, we find the Inclusivists. This is the view that while one religion is correct, other religions have some of the truth and aren't completely wrong. Inclusivists accept the idea that salvation for non-Christians is possible, but only possible on Christian terms. There are differences of opinion among Inclusivists aboout how that works. Some argue that Christ's atoning sacrifice works for non-Christians too. So while they might be saved, it's Christ saving them and not their own religion. Other Inclusivists argue that non-Christians will come face-to-face with Christ after death and will have the post-mortem opportunity to accept or reject him then.

Inclusivism has been the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church since Vatican II. The theology of inclusivism is often associated with the theologian Karl Rahner, who championed it.

 

[Yazata]

The blindness and bigotry visible in so much of such posting by Christians here is reasonable cause to support the continued occasional existence of these kinds of threads - they are apparently necessary, for Christians to have at least a sliver of an opportunity to become aware of how they've been addressing, thinking about, and treating other human beings.

So the solution to individual Christians sterotyping their perceived opponents and reducing them to ugly caricatures, is to sterotype all Christians (or even religious people in general, whether they are Christian or not) and to reduce all of them to caricatures?

Absolutely brilliant. Atheists reducing themselves to the level of those they hate so passionately (for being haters) and adopting all of their opponents' perceived faults is guaranteed to make everything much better.

 

[exchemist]

I've said the same before in this thread, but went unheeded my the OP. If anything it riled him up all over again. Without trying to find my earlier post, I know that I must have said (or meant) that I was 12 years in Catholic school with the nuns, I've been to Mass countless times ( if not always regularly) and this 'everyone besides us is going to burn' concept has never ever come up. As for other faiths being discussed, Judaism certainly is mentioned. One can hardly read from the Old Testament, or about Peter, Paul or Jesus and not taste the Jewish flavor of them. So that's just natural, and was in no way pejorative. Even after 9/11 no priest in his homily has remarked on Islam that I remember, and I am sure I would for the novelty of the thing. We did, however, study Islam as an aspect of our high school social studies classes, in connection with the larger topic of The Middle East. No one had anything bad to say about it. I am quite sure. Protestantism is resoundingly ignored. I don't know how I first even learned of Martin Luther and the gang, but I can tell you it wasn't under the wing of the Catholic Church. Same goes for homosexuality. Sure, us boys in the schoolyard were always calling each other faggots and queers, but before high school they were meaningless cuss words to us. Even in sex education classes with the lay biology teacher or gym teacher, homosexuality was never discussed. Not hushed up, just ignored not because it was controversial, but because it was on no great concern to any of us.

So how is it that I come to read at a Science Forum, (the religious sub-forum, but a Science forum, nonetheless) and have to see endless drivel on how ignorant, fascist and homophobic Christians are. I am told we are bigots, and this is the part where I get confused, that somehow makes it all right for the OP to make bigoted statements himself, and to do so repeatedly because he feels he's been oppressed. He even has allies and supporters.

All of this has already been said around and around in this thread and still it is not in the cesspool. If the moderators agree that Christianity is worse than Nazism and that homosexuality deserves all the support it can get from them, that is their right, but how is cutting and pasting nonsense from ridiculously ignorant people who suppose they are followers of Jesus Christ a viable thread? I thought this sub-forum was to discuss religions of all kinds, not to spam anti-religious feeling. And any attempt to discuss or defend religion is met with more vitriol, hate-speech and more spam. Surely a person's right to spam (I mean, speak) freely can be curtailed when the objective is clearly to offend and just as bigoted as the fringe quotes it pretends to be fighting against.

Cesspool it, I say.

As it happens, there is a story in the UK press today on this very subject: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...o-believe-in-god-to-go-to-heaven-8810062.html

 

[spidergoat]

So how does coming here and generalising help?
Isn't it better to deal with such behaviour, to whom it may concern?

jan.

No, it's a cultural phenomenon. Why are you even offended if you know that your beliefs don't resemble theirs?

 

[Yazata]

Their take on Halloween would probably be more like the time I took some Italian tourist ladies to San Francisco's North Beach district.

Do you live in the Bay Area? I'm a native San Franciscan, graduate of SF State, and currently live down the peninsula in Silicon Valley.

North Beach bills itself as a 'Little Italy', but my Italian friends found it faux genuine and quite laughable. We left after ten minutes.

I love North Beach. While it obviously isn't an accurate reproduction of Italy, I don't think that its residents ever intended it to be. It was just where many Italian immigrants settled the better part of a century ago and created kind of an Italian flavored American neighborhood. Today North Beach exists very much on its own terms, with good restaurants, active cafes and street life, all of it with drop-dead beautiful bay views. It's arty (the SF Art Institute is there) with vaguely intellectual overtones (City Lights bookstore and the literary beats). The most exotic unassimilated foreign element today has got to be Chinese, leaking north across Broadway out of Chinatown.

I think they might have even been offended except that they must have realized I meant no harm, and had honestly thought they would enjoy the place. silly me!

I'm with you, I don't see how any visitors to SF wouldn't love the place. (Which is one reason why it's often overrun with tourists, I guess.)

If visitors don't like North Beach (impossible!), walk them a few blocks south and into one of the little side streets, and they can imagine that they half the world away from North Beach in a some old neighborhood in Xian.

 

[Magical Realist]

"The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church."--Pope Eugene IV

 

[Jan Ardena]

No, it's a cultural phenomenon. Why are you even offended if you know that your beliefs don't resemble theirs?

That cultural phenomenon isn't represented here, so who is it aimed at.

It's more disappointing than offensive.

jan.

 

[Yazata]

Pope Eugene IV

Pope Eugene IV died in 1447.

 

[Magical Realist]

Pope Eugene IV died in 1447.

You're saying he was mistaken about his own church's beliefs? I thought popes were infallible.

Here's a more recent document from the Vatican dated 1964. Is that recent enough for ya?


"Nevertheless, our separated brethren, whether considered as individuals or as Communities and Churches, are not blessed with that unity which Jesus Christ wished to bestow on all those who through Him were born again into one body, and with Him quickened to newness of life- that unity which the Holy Scriptures and the ancient Tradition of the Church proclaim. For it is only through Christ's Catholic Church, which is 'the all-embracing means of salvation,' that they can benefit fully from the means of salvation. We believe that Our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, in order to establish the one Body of Christ on earth to which all should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the people of God."

This is from the 1964 Vatican II document "Lumen Gentium":

Paragraph 14 explains: "Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved."

IOW, non catholic? Sorry, you're shit out of luck!

 

[Arne Saknussemm]

Do you live in the Bay Area? I'm a native San Franciscan, graduate of SF State, and currently live down the peninsula in Silicon Valley.

I love North Beach. While it obviously isn't an accurate reproduction of Italy, I don't think that its residents ever intended it to be. It was just where many Italian immigrants settled the better part of a century ago and created kind of an Italian flavored American neighborhood. Today North Beach exists very much on its own terms, with good restaurants, active cafes and street life, all of it with drop-dead beautiful bay views. It's arty (the SF Art Institute is there) with vaguely intellectual overtones (City Lights bookstore and the literary beats). The most exotic unassimilated foreign element today has got to be Chinese, leaking north across Broadway out of Chinatown.


I'm with you, I don't see how any visitors to SF wouldn't love the place. (Which is one reason why it's often overrun with tourists, I guess.)

If visitors don't like North Beach (impossible!), walk them a few blocks south and into one of the little side streets, and they can imagine that they half the world away from North Beach in a some old neighborhood in Xian.

I lived in Frisco and Berkeley between 1983 and 1985. I enjoy calling it Frisco now because I know you guys hate it

Of course North Beach doesn't even pretend to be Italy, and there is no way it could. Perhaps my friends were just being over-critical, to put it kindly. I've been to City Lights Bookstore many times. I think the whole city suffers from vaguely intellectual overtones, and is over full of itself. I've come to adopt the New York City view of it. They visit Frisco and frown and nod, and say, "Yeah, nice little town you got here."

I've since lived in Tokyo, among other places, and Frisco's (1980's) boast of 100 restaurants per square mile is just cute to me now. Tokyo must have 200,000. However, I don't mean to knock your home town. My remarks are in good fun

Speaking of Chinatown, or rather China Towns: when I was living in New York, New York (the place so nice they had to name it twice). One day I emerged from the subway onto Canal Street or thereabouts and I thought I had entered The Twilight Zone! By this time. I had been to many cities and towns in Mainland China, and Canal Street was more Chinese than any place I'd ever been. I believe the anthropologists call it 'cultural drift' when a diasporic population retains cultural aspects that have since disappeared from the main center. I saw chanting, incense urn toting Buddhist monks with begging bowls, smelled dried fish and exotic spices EVERYWHERE and none of the Chinese shopkeepers seemed to have a clue as how to speak English (which seemed odd!). I wonder if I had taken some Chinese tourists there what they would have thought!

 

[exchemist]

You're saying he was mistaken about his own church's beliefs? I thought popes were infallible.

Here's a more recent document from the Vatican dated 1964. Is that recent enough for ya?


"Nevertheless, our separated brethren, whether considered as individuals or as Communities and Churches, are not blessed with that unity which Jesus Christ wished to bestow on all those who through Him were born again into one body, and with Him quickened to newness of life- that unity which the Holy Scriptures and the ancient Tradition of the Church proclaim. For it is only through Christ's Catholic Church, which is 'the all-embracing means of salvation,' that they can benefit fully from the means of salvation. We believe that Our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, in order to establish the one Body of Christ on earth to which all should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the people of God."

This is from the 1964 Vatican II document "Lumen Gentium":

Paragraph 14 explains: "Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved."

IOW, non catholic? Sorry, you're shit out of luck!

You're not reading it. It says people could not be saved if they refuse, "knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ". Clearly, people who don't know this are not in that category. Right? And that would apply to most people who have not actually been taught Catholicism, right?

So it doesn't remotely say what you suggest.

See also this, today, from the current Pope, which is in fact consistent with it: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...o-believe-in-god-to-go-to-heaven-8810062.html

I mention this not to defend the Catholc Curch particularly, but just to highlight that church people are not all quite the dimwits that shallow bigots seem to like to think.

 

[gmilam]

I was raised in the Methodist church, one of the more liberal protestant denominations. I remember being in Sunday School when I was around 12 (1970) and our "teacher" told us that the only way to heaven was belief in Jesus. Therefore all Jews, no matter how nice they may be, were going to hell and it was our job to try and save them.

It may or may not be official church dogma, but the sentiment runs rampant in most churches I've been to.

 

[Arne Saknussemm]

I was raised in the Methodist church, one of the more liberal protestant denominations. I remember being in Sunday School when I was around 12 (1970) and our "teacher" told us that the only way to heaven was belief in Jesus. Therefore all Jews, no matter how nice they may be, were going to hell and it was our job to try and save them.

It may or may not be official church dogma, but the sentiment runs rampant in most churches I've been to.

If you say so. I'm not going to call you a liar. However, exchemists latest post support what I have said about the Catholic Church. Pope Frank's latest in no way contradicts The Vatican's official stance these last 50 years. They didn't burden us kids at Saint Mary's so much with official proclamations, we simply were never taught that non-Catholics were damned, just that Cincinati baseball and football fans were. LOL

 

[exchemist]

I was raised in the Methodist church, one of the more liberal protestant denominations. I remember being in Sunday School when I was around 12 (1970) and our "teacher" told us that the only way to heaven was belief in Jesus. Therefore all Jews, no matter how nice they may be, were going to hell and it was our job to try and save them.

It may or may not be official church dogma, but the sentiment runs rampant in most churches I've been to.

Yes it was the absurdity of this position that led to the development in the Catholic Church of the idea of Limbo. The separate idea of Purgatory arose from a similar consideration of the fate of those who die in a state of sinfulness but are not irrevocably evil. The black and white, all or nothing, notion of heaven or hell has clearly struck people in the church as implausible for a loving God, for quite some centuries.

 

[spidergoat]

That cultural phenomenon isn't represented here, so who is it aimed at.

It's more disappointing than offensive.

jan.

Dude, I could fill a book with the crazy things Christians say and do. How about this:
Tuam mother-and-baby home is a scandal of church and state

or this:

A Magdalene laundry, also known as a Magdalene asylum, was a house for women who had "fallen" from "moral correctness".

Women were also sent to them because they were considered too pretty, too ugly, too clever or too silly.

 

[Arne Saknussemm]

Yes it was the absurdity of this position that led to the development in the Catholic Church of the idea of Limbo. The separate idea of Purgatory arose from a similar consideration of the fate of those who die in a state of sinfulness but are not irrevocably evil. The black and white, all or nothing, notion of heaven or hell has clearly struck people in the church as implausible for a loving God, for quite some centuries.

Yeah! Limbo, mon!



click that pic!

 

[Magical Realist]

Roman Catholic - "To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self- exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell." Catechism - 1033

That covers quite a few "good" nonchristian people actually. IOW, you have to accept the Christian belief in mortal sin, feel guilty about it, believe in the Christian God, and ask him to forgive you before you croak or you get to spend eternity in hell. Ofcourse THEY say you are choosing to be hell. That's sorta gets God off the hook. I simply choose not to accept anything religion says is true. So I guess that means its hell for me. Yawwwn...