FyreStar
Have you noticed how the Christian posters here seem to be referring to a mysterious form of "Christianity" that only they see?
Like the bit about love and not acting against evil: Christians are supposed to act against evil against them--they are to offer up the other cheek and await the second blow. Yeah, that's an act, I suppose, but it seems that Jesus is advocating human intervention, lack of faith, and revenge, revenge, revenge. That is, if we examine the assertion about not acting against evil as expressed by the Christian advocate.
And then there's
Tony1 who dismisses any Christian faith that disagrees with him or hurts his politics by calling them Catholic.
How can one engage such nebulous cowardice? These people want the reward promised them, but the religion's too hard to carry out to its fullest demand. I think we're seeing here both the triumph and the fatal wound of Christianity. It is the triumph because for ages believers have licensed tangible and spiritual evil in the name of their faith, believing that they are doing good.
I think it's a little like
KalvinB says, though: keep shooting enough and eventually you'll hit the target. Any Christian can find a biblical passage to support their rude conduct: apparently if you write enough stuff down, anyone can find what they want in it.
Consider
BevKay's topic assertions:
1. Laws that required justice among all people. (Before this, power and oppression ruled.) No real citations of those laws, of course, or discussion of their historical context is offered in support of the assertion, and it also seems to ignore the fact that Christian governments have been obscene violaters of human beings for ages. Of course, we see the same today when we watch American Christians, for instance, simply choose who is included in "all people". The OCA in Oregon, CFV in Colorado; objections to literature; the paradox of "clothing-optional laws" (why is clothing-optional a special law, instead of the natural assumption?); prayer in schools, and the posting of the Ten Commandments (1) ....
It makes it difficult to confront the spectre one sees in Christianity when Christians both hail the body of Jesus Christ in their common faith yet turn a blind eye toward that common thread when condemning the sins of the so-called "false". Recall that
Tony1's anti-Catholic bender came up here because he didn't want his faith to be historically associated with the human carnage that has accompanied the Good Book.
Consider Christian standards: The weird Christian social obsession with sexuality puzzles me. Certes, there are practical reasons for a monogamous heterosexual marriage, but they're merely
practical reasons--it reduces the spread of the disease, it encourages procreation, it offers unit stability amid human chaos. Yet Freud identified a link between sexual repression and psychological deviance that has yet to be fully refuted; most "corrections" of Freud are merely resolutions of accuracy. Serial rapists, for instance, are said to work toward goals other than simple orgasms. The sense of authority, power, dominion, or other related sentiment is only possible because of the social paranoia. Where a chemical imbalance is the cause, such is nature and we must protect against that in some manner; but when behavioral deviance is the cause, we must consider the social regard for sexuality and its myriad contributions to behavioral deviance. Likewise, among assault survivors, Christian reservation seems to agitate the emotional destabilization.
I'm sorry, dear, and maybe I'm insensitive, but why are you apologizing for not being a virgin our first time together? (Yeah, that particular one scarred me, I admit. Hello? Why in the world should a woman feel compelled to
apologize to her lover for being raped as a child? Someone
please explain this to me!) And the thing is that such an apology
seems to have been warranted by a conflict with the sense of sin: virginity carries a certain elevated status in our sex-obsessed culture. Why does a guy become excited at a woman's bare ass? If clothing wasn't optional only by specific legal designation--that is, if it wasn't the norm to
require clothing--it would eventually become so commonplace that the mere sight of "forbidden" flesh would cease to have its consistently exciting aspect. "Indecent exposure"? Okay, so a flasher is somehow traumatizing; you want to stop a flasher? Look at it and say, "And ...?" If it's something you've seen before, or aren't impressed by ... if there's not an incredibly conflicting flash of
Oh my God it's his penis! we might demonstrate the difference between cultural standards.
Let's look at the mundane effect, though, instead of the theoretical effects. Monogamous heterosexual marriage: in Western (Judeo-Christian) societies, this has certain effects. In the United States, unit stability is a toss-up: divorce rates are through the roof. Yes, it appears that monogamy does indeed help control disease. Of procreation, we're overpopulated on this earth for our methods of living. Sexual repression: by hiding sexuality from ourselves, we create numerous ill effects. The idea of hiding sexuality from children entirely is stupid: it is the motivation of Freud's observations. Many of his patients were women traumatized by the surprise of their honeymoon and the conflicts such filthy acts created amid their religious conscience. In the modern day, parents enact what Spooner criticized: ignorance of vice must necessarily equal virtue. Unfortunately, young people do have sex, and if they're not prepared ... is it any coincidence that of industrialized nations, the US typically has the highest teen-unwed pregnancy rate?
And yet the point of this whole seemingly pointless digression is to demonstrate in part the Christian denial of self: the standards are lofty and perhaps admirable, but the effect is all the Christians fear, perpetuating their clinging to God and perpetual surrender of intellect to faith.
And so I look back up to the top of my text: Have you ever noticed how our Christian posters seem to be referring to a mysterious "Christianity" that only they see? That is, that only the individual sees? And while one's personal relationship with God seems to be an appropriate reason for religion, they see not the effect of such selfishness; add to that the greed of redemption, and it becomes an obsessive restriction of what Christianity is.
The point of
that,
FyreStar, is to take the opportunity of observing your current debate and advise that while your points are valid and seem quite necessary considerations, I'm not sure you can expect to communicate through the thickness of it all. Sure, a Sufi sees the soul as the measure of all things, and thus sees the self when seeing God, but it seems Christians have shortcut this process and demonstrated what happens when one simply leaps to an assumption without learning to manage all that comes with it.
Perhaps the best example I can offer is
Tony1's assumption of what "their Creator" means. I would advise that he ask everyone included in the word "their", and then you might have an idea. But such a possibility doesn't exist because God is what he makes it.
It's not necessarily a waste of your time,
FyreStar (I'm searching for a way to bring it back around and close it up here), but then again, you are dealing with Christians. Perhaps that's a fair question: why do the infidels care? I recall that this has been asked in the past, but what none of those Christians seem to realize is that it's because "Christianity"--this nebulous idea that Christians cling to while dismissing randomly--constantly presses against people to make them into what the people don't want to be. Think of it this way: you're helping save the world by trying to make clear what Christians can't quite figure out. And we infidels salute you, sir.
I'll stop now, I promise. (But I did write the note below before writing that sentence.)
Note 1: For instance, I could save a school district or county courthouse a lot of money; if a religious "commandment" must be present, why waste your money with ten? Especially with the exclusionary ones: great idea for a free and inclusive society, eh? Seriously, in blazing letters inside the front door of the school:
An thou harm none, do what thou wilt. Very simply: be free, and treat others well. See? It's a lot less expensive to put up, and says a lot more, since it's not devoted to suggesting adultery and murder to students, and doesn't demand that you subscribe to God. In the end, though, this is why we keep religion out of schools, but Christians don't understand this: who could possibly object to the 10 Commandments? (Other faiths). Who could possibly object? (Other faiths.) Who could possibly object? (Other faiths!) See? Nobody objects. (Hello?!)
thanx,
Tiassa
