An acquaintance from high school who is now a 'friend' on Facebook left me this response to my Facebook post congratulating the Reich wing Christians for last week's verdict from the CA Supreme court and for causing the murder of that doctor in Kansas:
Here's a tip! If it's not good......it's not God! If it contains confusion.........it's not God! If it is not done with love...........it's not God! Jeus leaves nothing to wonder nor to question...........but, humans do. Humans do a lot of things 'in the name of God' but that doesn't mean God is in it. True Christians do not like some things that are being done in the name of Christ either. I assure you that a 'true Christian' did 'not' kill that man. They would pray for him. God is good.
Let me break down how wrong her statement is for you folks who don't have me on your Facebook friend list.
First of all if you buy into the premise that God created the heavens and the earth (which I don't), then you've got to accept that he created everything on the heavens and the earth. Everything includes sunshine, fluffy bunnies, wet nosed cute lil' puppies, brownies, sweaters, snow, swimming pools, trees, childhood cancers, birth defects, genocide, homophobes, drunk drivers, intolerant Christians, well meaning atheists, in short, if you believe in God the creator, then must believe that he created everything and not just the good things.
Second of all most of the colossally bad things that have taken place were done in the name of God and in order to bring Jesus to more people. Chief among those things would be slavery (sanctioned and condoned in the book of Bronze Age fairy tales we know as the Bible), subjugation of women, persecution of homosexuals, discrimination against blacks and others who are non white, and the murder of countless thousands of native peoples who had the gall to be born in a culture that had no truck with Jesus and his daddy.
Thirdly, Jesus and God left plenty to wonder and question. If they didn't then they would have told us long ago how to heal diseases and sickness. They would have told us how to build rockets sooner than we did so we could explore the universe. They would have told us how things work in the natural world without us having to find out ourselves. But they did not do those things. And they didn't for one reason and one reason only, they don't exist. We made up God and Jesus. Humans made it all up back when we had no idea how things worked. It was easy to say, "Oh, no worries. God made it all." But what was easy was not true. God didn't make it all. God is not behind everything. It's intellectually cowardly to claim otherwise. It's also, as history has showed us time and time again, dangerous and deadly to listen to people who claim to know the will of God and who tell us we must be meek and submit to them because only they know what's best. If we had listened to them then 99% of modern medicine would not have come about.
Fourthly, to claim that the killer of that doctor was not a 'true Christian' is nonsense. The man who is accused of killing that doctor is a Christian. He was a member of Operation Rescue, which is a Christian based anti abortion group. For someone to say that someone else is not a true Christian because they do things that other Christians would not do is utter nonsense. If you believe in God and if you believe that Jesus is his son and he came to earth to save us all, then you're a Christian. And that means even though you may not like or agree with people like Fred Phelps, or Jerry Fallwell, or Pat Robertson, or James Dobson, or people who murder in the name of God, you are still part of their sect and whether you like it or not they speak for your group of believers. Just as you lump me in with Hitler, Mao, and Stalin (all alleged atheists), you get lumped in with the worst of your belief group.
And finally, if God is so good why do we still have birth defects? Did those little babies displease God in the womb? Why do we still have racism? Does God favor one skin color over another? Why is there still genocide in the world? I thought God loved us all. And no, you Christians don't get to claim that the Devil is the cause of all the bad shit in the world, because you know what? God created him too if you believe the Bible and Christian tradition.
You know what really is good? Being kind to others. Not being judgmental, not killing, not stealing, not lying. Helping others when they need it regardless of their faith, skin color, gender, or the gender of which ever consenting adult they choose to love. Respecting the earth and all it's inhabitants is good. Living an ecologically sustainable life and reducing your footprint on our planet is good. God is something that we can't see, feel, or touch, but other people, plants, and animals are, be kind and loving towards them and that'll help out things more than praising something that is not there and that most of us can't agree on on anyway.
15 comments:
Yes, yes, yes, and yes to all of that. Thanks especially for the part about being "intellectually cowardly." That always bothers me, and it's a point I don't hear enough. That it takes more courage to admit "I don't know" and work to discover rather than being incurious and ignorant.
I know you hate when I quibble with you, but may I please ask you to explain exactly which of Jesus' teachings would support the killing of the abortion doctor? Because that's what a true Christian should be basing his/her actions upon.
Either Christ taught murder and violence was acceptable, or this man was acting contrary to Christ's teachings, and therefore not a "true Christian."
Um, if you're looking for the Biblical justification for this, my money's on Leviticus. That is one effed up book, man.
When I was growing up, we attended church regularly. My parents were both Deacons, my mom taught Sunday School, and my together my parents started a social group for younger couples (20s-40s) with kids. I sang in the choir. As a family, many of our friends were from church.
In 7th grade, my parents separated and prepared to divorce. I continued to attend Sunday School and sing in the choir, but immediately noticed that my friends were no longer able to hang out with me. My mom was booted out of the group she and my dad started because "it was for couples only and my mom was no longer part of a couple."
Then in 8th grade as I was going through Confirmation, a young woman in her 20s came to speak to my class about the power of prayer and how she was paralyzed and the entire church came together and had prayer services just for her. God heard these prayers and made her walk again. I will never forget raising my hand and asking if her story was true why had my 14 year old cousin just died of Leukemia that he'd been plagued with since he was 18 mths old? He was a Christian, had accepted God and had more people across the country praying for him than she would ever know (Danny Thomas, founder of St. Jude Children's Hosp. attended his funeral). I also asked why had my parents just split up? I did everything right. My family was a good Christian family. Why had God picked her and not me? What made her so special?
I was promptly walked out of class and told that my questions were "inappropriate" but were never answered. I was confirmed a couple of months later because it made my mom and grandmother happy, but have been to church less than 10 times in the 25 years since then.
I hate hearing people talk about WWJD and then see them go stab someone in the back. I am spiritual, but not religious and believe that I don't need to be running around screaming about what a good Christian I am. People can see the kind of person I am through my actions - how I treat others, how I treat our planet, etc.
Little Merry Sunshine my heart breaks for little you all those years ago and the after effects.
I just watched the film "Jesus Camp" last night and I found it disturbing on multiple levels. The youth ministers in that Evangelical ministry were terrifying children into tears and fits for their sins. The children were taught about the evils of evolution, the government and the need for their generation to take back the USA for Jesus. Young Pre-teens were approaching adults who they said God told them to try to save. The same kids were participating anti-choice protests.
Those youth were not old enough to understand how to rationalize and think for themselves, so prone to manipulation and faith in the integrity of their parents and loved ones. Some kids in the film were home schooled and sheltered from other Christians, people of other faiths, not to mention secular society.
Anyone with any belief or philosophy could be teaching and provoking youth in the same way. The belief was being used as the justification for action on hate and essentially attacks or warfare on those with other beliefs.
What happened to that doctor is appalling enough just based on the fact that one human murder another human being; the fact that clashing personal, political, and professional beliefs is the motive is disturbing. My heart breaks for that fact. Something is seriously off balance with a person who takes such action, whatever they use as their motive.
Agreed. Imagine if we lefties started whacking the nut jobs on the right when we felt they were a danger to the planet and our children.
Well said, Monkey.
Its so frustrating to try and explain things to people some days, ain't it?
Its only throught the rational arguements of you and others that I have read today have I been able to keep sane over this latest atrocity by so called 'christian' people. The bad peddling and handwashing done by the same bigotted hippocrites that encourage such evil actions are driving me up the wall. They use their 'god' to explain their hatred and narrow minded vision of the world and they are no better than the Taliban. To hell with the war of the religions - when is coming the war AGAINST the religions?
You are 100% correct about all of this and I applaud you for saying all of it. I do have a minor quibble and that is that Jesus does seem to have been a man who was born at some point in the past during the Roman occupation of what is now Israel. But he was just that, a man, nothing more, nothing less. Christians have created stories and mythology around him just to have more fairy tales to believe in. Again, an amazing job of blogging this as usual.
Let's start by calling that killer in Kansas exactly what he is, a pro-life assassin.
Yep, flocks tend to become armies...very sad. I'm by no means religeous but kinda have to believe there is something there beyond what we see. Maybe it is what makes you nice, makes flowers pretty, and makes lice eat dead skin. Whatever it is, I would never be so bold as to pretend I knew it's will, or guess that it even has a will.
Of course, if you were talking about the 11th dimension, I'd know what was up. I'm in good with the great amoeba beer god there. I know his will....LOL
Well this guy is obviously a wing-nut. Strange how some Christians sort of 'skim' over the whole 'thou shall not kill' commandment. I'm not a very religious person and have definite problems with organized religion, but I do think its sad that the more moderate/liberal religious people get lumped in with wackos like these.And not just Christians, but Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc.
Most people with some shred of spirituality just want to live a peaceful, non-violent life.
Amen! Uh, I mean, Right on!
what i have often wondered about is this-
what do so many fundamentalist christians cling so doggedly to the "old"testament?"
shouldn't christians be all about the "new" testament?"
there's enough in there to keep a christian hard at work each and every day.
no snark, just the truth.
this act was domestic terrorism by a man who it seems, thought his "GOD" needed HIS help.
arrogant isn't it?
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