Your leg’s too short to kick God’s nuts.
This is still a stupid, ignorant, racist, bigoted statement. It’s fucking hate speech. Why defend it?
Links please?
I’ve never read about anyone trying to shake a JW’s faith excrept in Chick tracts. I’ve seen threads where people joke about messing with their heads a little bit but I’ve never seen anyone “bragging” that “made someone else doubt their faith.” I call bullshit. Linky-links?
Oh boy, you sure got me. I’m actually scared the Chick God is real. Look at me shake. :rolleyes:
Would it be vile to pray for the death of an innocent person? Would I have to believe in the Chick God to say that it was a vile thing tp pray for?
The asshole’s prayer is vile in its intent. It shows a hateful and bigoted attitude towards other cultures and faiths. Of course the prayer itself is worthless and any real God would be too busy paying attention to the sincere and legitimate prayers of the Muslims than to humor the spiteful fantasies of fanatical morons.
Prayer. You keep using this word – I do not think it means what you think it means.
What do you think this guy is praying? That God would smite them where they stand? I don’t know where you are coming up with “spiteful fantasies” except in your own imagination. I can’t even respond to your comment about praying for the death of an innocent person because I have no idea what you’re talking about.
If he hated them, he wouldn’t be praying for them. Praying that God would make Himself known to people? And without even telling the people you pray for? I can’t believe you find this so troubling. Even if God was a complete fantasy, there’s no way that praying for them does any harm.
Bigoted? That’s a loaded word. Believing that other people have mistaken ideas about God is bigotry? That would apply to you too then, wouldn’t it?
DoC, I pray that you would someday overcome this hatred you have of Christianity and hear the real Jesus speaking to you. Whattya gonna do about it?
(btw, I hope you don’t think I hate you!)
The man praying loves the Muslims he prays for in the same way that the SBC loves gay people.
The man is praying that as these people go to pray and worship the God they love and worship that they will STOP doing this and realize that their religion is a dirty trick of Satan, and that they will suddenly start following his God and his religion, the ultimate Way, Truth and Light ™.
Analogy Time!
Fairy Sparkles, the Invisible Pink Unicorn and my personal Lord and Savior created the world, and this man doing the praying. Fairy Sparkles loves this man. Fairy Sparkles wants this man to love the one who created him! Fairy Sparkles doesn’t understand why this man prays to false Gods, and not the real god, herself!
Fairy Sparkles wants me to pray to her that as this man goes to church every Sunday, he realizes that God, Jesus and the Church are evil tricks of Gargamel, Fairy’s nemesis. She wants this man to be flooded with Fairy Sparkles love! I have to pary that he will stop following the false god, so that this man can go to Fluffy Pink Kitty land when he dies.
Of course, I’m pretty sure that that is what Fairy Sparkles wants. I know that Fairy Sparkles is the ultimate, cause Pastor Fairy Sparkles wouldn’t lie to me, and I have faith, so it must be right!
And I have to try to save the ignorant Heathen christians who can’t see fairy sparkles love for them!
Because, they are just wrong.
God already is known to them. They’re praying aren’t they?. If he cared about them he would respect their faith…he might even be able to learn from it.
Believing that only *my faith is true is bigotry. Calling another persons faith “Satanic” or “terrorist” is bigotry. Harrassing other people and trying to convert them is bigotry. I have no wish to stop anyone from believing or worshipping anything they wish. I can live with and respect and even learn from people who have a totally different worldview than I do. So can most Christians and Muslims. It’s the fanatics that are the problem.
If you read any of the many religion threads I’ve participated in in GD you’ll see that I don’t hate Christianity at all. I have an avid interest in, and respect for, all religious thought. What pisses me off is arrogance and intolerance. It’s the behavior of the people in the OP that bothers me, not their beliefs. I would feel the same way if it was Hare Krishnas or if it was some self-appointed group of secular humanists trying to lead Muslims to atheism.
I don’t think you hate me, but I have a thick skin. Don’t be afraid to call me an asshole or tell me to get fucked if you think I’m full of shit. I can take it and you wouldn’t be the first…or the last.
Ilsa, I didn’t know the IPU had a name. Are you sure it’s ok to write her name on a MB? Does she have many names or just one? I don’t want to make any mistakes with her. She is a kind and benevolent unicorn…as long as you follow the RULES. 
Ilsa_Lund, my point is that your praying to Fairy Sparkles does me no harm and I do not see it as a sign that you carry a vile, deep-seated hatred of me.
In fact, if you really beleived in Fairy Sparkles, and hated me, you would pray that I would never learn the truth about your Unicorn, and that I would go on about my ignorant ways.
And btw, you’re throwing in another stereotype, “because pastor said so.” There’s no indication that the person quoted in the OP is blindly following any particular pastor. But it’s much easier to fight a straw man, isn’t it?
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!
Very sorry, Dio.
It was meant to be an analogy against the evangelists. I was trying to back up your argument with my fairy sparkles analogy. I guess I did a poor job.
That wa the point about the SBC and gay people in my first line. I was illustrating that the love the guy feels for the muslims is just a superficial insecurity, and that he only loves these people so that he can convert them to his way of thinking.
My apologies.
The bottom line “modus operandi” of both religions is "convert’em or kill’em. The world today would be “The Crusades - Episode II” if Hollywood was doing it.
Don’t apologize. I was JOKING. Hence the
You’re analogy was fine, I was just joining in with it.
Your analogy, not “you’re” analogy. :smack:
A word from Pterry:
Actually, DoC, you’re right, and I have read many of your posts and respect both your opinions and the way you debate them. My snipe about “hating Christianity” was out of line. (I think you unfairly characterize the Christian mainstream by painting Christian activists as hate-mongers, however).
I have three sets of friends who are missionaries. One married couple with three kids who teach bible studies for students in Ukraine. One dentist and his wife and two little girls who provides free dental services to people in west Africa. And one retired, twice-widowed woman who is moving to Santiago, Chile to work with the Episcopal church there in one of the poorest parts of the city.
None of them hate the nationals of the countries they are in. All of them feel a deep desire to show Jesus’ love in whatever ways they can. That includes giving up a comfortable life in the US to live with them, build relationships, and serve them as they can. It also includes praying for the people in these countries, and telling them about Jesus in sensitive and appropriate ways.
That’s why I get defensive when people pigeonhole them as screaming, foaming-at-the-mouth zealots out to destroy the culture they’ve “invaded.” There’s no indication in the Times article that the guy quoted who prays for the Muslims is any different. Maybe he is, but most missionaries are more like the ones I know.
I lived in West africa for two years (Libreria) and I knew quite a few missionaries. Most of them were not especially evangelistic but some of them were. The ones who ended up with converts were the ones who simply did what they could to help people uncinditionally and who showed respect for traditional tribal beliefs. The kinds of missionaries who were there only to proselytize, who showed ignorance, indifference or hostility to tribal traditions utterly failed either to earn the respect of natives or their conversions. talking about love, compassion and charity (or better yet, simply practicing those things)had a much better chance of seeping through to people than telling them that their deities and spirits were “demons.”
Also, it’s important to note that all of these missionaries (even the zealots) were honest about why they were there. They didn’t use subterfuge or lie about their intentions.
I am not condemning all missionaries, and certainly not mainstream Christianity. It’s my contention that the people in the OP do not represent either. They are off-the-reservation zealots who are unwelcome pests in a region which is already volatile and which has a deep religious heritage of its own. By using the tactics they are using they are endangering their own lives, the lives of non-evangelistic Christians who have spent years establishing trust, and jeapordizing the over all peace of the region.
Jesus said that if someone doesn’t want to hear your message that you are to “shake the dust from your sandals” and move along to the next house. This house doesn’t want to hear this message. It’s time to shake the dust.
Well then, you and I are not far apart. I think I read the OP and saw some stuff that was ludicrous (like the Ashcroft quote) and some stuff that seemed reasonable (like praying for people). You had a different perspective and given the lack of details in the OP, there’s no way to tell what kind of missionary this guy is.
My point is that the OP’s “Fuck you, Christian Evangelists!” is entirely too broad, and that there are people who consider themselves Christian evangelical missionaries who do not deserve that kind of abuse.
The Middle East has produced three major religions, which are historically related: Judaism, Christinaity, and Islam. These religions are various responses to the climatic conditions in the Middle East. Climatic conditions explain both how each religion arose and how they vary from one another.
It goes like this:
It is very hot and dry in the Middle East, so people wear robes to ventilate their bodies. However, since the robes are open at the bottom, hot sand inevitably gets swept up by the wind and ends up in one’s hot, sticky crack. Anyone who is familiar with this experience will testify that this is most distressful.
Christians respond to this harrowing situation with the comforting belief that, if they are very, very good, they will one day be free of sand in their cracks. This allows them to endure a great deal of distress. However, many Christians are so eager to see a world free of sandy cracks that they are zealous to liberate even those who do not believe one’s crack can be thus liberated. There are some Christians who seek to liberate your crack at gunpoint.
Muslims, on the other hand, are often driven mad by the harassment of hot sand up one’s crack—so much so that many are driven to extreme anger and fervent histrionics. Some are even driven to acts of violence. Some Muslims believe that these extreme acts, born of sandy torment, will bring them an eternal life free of sand. They also believe they’ll get grapes and virgins.
Finally, Jews respond to their torment with the belief that there is nothing they can do about the sand in their cracks, for they are condemend to endure it. However, they content themselves with the belief that their cracks are blessed, for they believe that God has promised them that the sand in their cracks will always be better than the sand in your crack.
That was posted in the first page, ya putz, and it’s not even original or very intelligent.
F’ing plagiarists.
This is one of my favorite quotes from Mark Twain. He wrote this after visiting Hawaii. I think it fits this thread,especially the last sentence.
Mark Twain
Nearby is an interesting ruin–the meager remains of an ancient temple–a place where human sacrifices were offered up in those old bygone days…long, long before the missionaries braved a thousand privations to come and make [the natives] permanently miserable by telling them how beautiful and how blissful a place heaven is, and how nearly impossible it is to get there; and showed the poor native how dreary a place perdition is and what unnecessarily liberal facilities there are for going to it; showed him how, in his ignorance, he had gone and fooled away all his kinsfolk to no purpose; showed him what rapture it is to work all day long for fifty cents to buy food for next day with, as compared with fishing for a pastime and lolling in the shade through eternal summer, and eating of the bounty that nobody labored to provide but Nature. How sad it is to think of the multitudes who have gone to their gaves in this beautiful island and never knew there was a hell.
- Roughing It
The SDMB came to your door one morning, interrupted your breakfast, and told you that you were living a “sinful” life and needed to be “saved”?
Where do I sign up for door-to-door SDMB service?
Skammer, the OP said he wasn’t talking about all christian evangelists, so your arguement about not all christian evanglists is completely irrelevant to this discussion.
oh.
well, okay then.
good point.
(how many Gods are there then?)