Fundamentalists and their Words of Wisdom

The BBQ Pit
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Yes. The atrocities were, in fact, committed for the purpose of advancing the economic and political interests of the atrocity-committers (it could be argued that the Crusades were the exception, but I’m not entirely convinced; a region of the world, physical control over which is the point of contention for just about all of human history, probably has some intrinsic strategic and economic value over and above the mystical).

Yes. Religious manipulation was used to enlist the shock troops to commit the atrocities (Joe Footsoldier was probably likely to be more responsive to “these savages are the children of Satan, and must be purged by the sanctified fire and the holy sword,” than by “the king really wants the gold these folks are sitting on.” – not that Joe Footsoldier wasn’t going to keep an eye peeled for any baubles he himself might stumble across). But the position of what I regard as the true Christians around here has always been (as I see it), that these things represented abuses of the basic message of Christianity.

And that’s the point. Christianity doesn’t have “positions” and “arguments.” It has messages. Usually messages about love, and people recognizing the value inherent in each other. People, including some very misguided people who are really more concerned with their own place in life than with love for others, have “positions” and “arguments.” And some of them take the name of “Christian” to themselves, without even attempting to understand the messages. Some of the people who do this become very successful at manipulating others into assisting them with furthering their own economic and political ends. The tragedy is that so many people who are truly of good will let them get away with it.

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There’s also the rather childish attitude of “I’m going to Heaven and you’re not, neener, neener, neener!”

63

Dammit tanaqui, here I was all set to flame you and you had to come and spoil it by being all reasonable and stuff :smiley:

I’m sorry for blatantly overreacting in my previous post, especially here

On a second reading this made itself clear as crystal. However, I was annoyed and didn’t bother to make a second reading. More fool me.

I can be such an ass when I’m pissed off :frowning:

64

Somehow I managed not to see this until all the clarifications were posted.

I think I’m just as happy. :wink:

And I’m rather glad nobody’s first reaction, when somebody says “Osama bin Laden” in a free-association thing, is “Polycarp.” :smiley:

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**kaylasdad99 wrote:

But the position of what I regard as the true Christians around here has always been (as I see it), that these things represented abuses of the basic message of Christianity.**

Prehaps. But the basic idea (the necessity of proselytizing and conversion) is still present, even in modern Christians. And how do you tell the “true” Christians from the “false” ones? Are we going to get into a “what makes a person a TRUE Christian?” argument?

And that’s the point. Christianity doesn’t have “positions” and “arguments.” It has messages.

I disagree! Christianity does have positions, one of the foremost being they follow the One God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God that delivered the Isrealites out of Egypt. I don’t have a cite, but there’s certainly the implication that other Gods are “false” or demons deceiving humanity. Or, at best, simply the same God, but with a different name. The first two are insulting, making the implicit statement that Christianity is the only true religion. The 3rd begs the question, if it’s the same god, why did he give so many different (and conflicting) messages to humanity?

66

Freyr: I believe in one God. But I have not bought the Doctrinal Blinders (patent pending) yet. And I suspect strongly that He did not limit Himself to thirteen related Semitic tribes and their descendents, along with what Gentiles decided to swear allegiance for one reason or another to the One among them through Whom He manifested Himself. I suspect that He tried to get through to an Arab in the 530s AD, to an Indian prince in the 600s BC, to Iranians in the 600s BC and 1840s AD – and that they all got a piece of His message and dressed it up with their own imaginings. Oh, and while we’re at it, I’m positive He worked though a Pharaoh with disabilities about 3430 years ago, and have a strong hunch He was doing some major influencing of thinking in the Uppsala region about the time of Christ as well.

And I don’t invest the same meaning in “saving” as many of the more conservative members of my faith do. In their belief-structure, as you know, Jesus is the superhero who swoops in to rescue sinners from being cast by YHWH to their just deserts in the fires of Hell – until you look at the little man behind the curtain and find they’re in cahoots, playing some sort of good cop/bad cop game.

For me, “saving” is removing from a sterile and dead-end life into a richer and fuller one, and one effectively limitless when you take the sorts of promises in John 14 (read figuratively) into account. I applaud David B.'s quest for the Truth through objectively verifiable “natural” means – I merely suggest that he can find more of the truth and a deeper truth through God. And I see God in nature, and would be the last to condemn any Neopagan for doing likewise – I merely say that He is not limited to the natural world, and to the pathetic realm of Magick, but reaches far beyond that.

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You’d think that an omniscient god could have thought of a better way to spread such an important message than to rely on a book and on fallible mortals. He could’ve written “God Loves You!” in Aramaic on the Moon and given everyone the miraculous ability to read it even if they didn’t know Aramaic. Only the blind would’ve missed that and God could’ve granted sight to the blind and clear skies for one day out of their lives so they would not have missed it either. (Of course, God would then have to explain why these poor people were blind the rest of the time.)

Or God could have simply granted everyone the knowledge that He exists. (And don’t tell me He wants us to use faith as if that were somehow a better way of knowing a truth than empiricism. It implies that God doesn’t want some of the people He made with His own “hands” to go to Heaven.) There are any number of better ways to spread “the Word” than with a book and word of mouth. In fact, those are probably the worst ways possible because they are so unreliable.

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**Polycarp wrote:

And I suspect strongly that He did not limit Himself to thirteen related Semitic tribes and their descendents, along with what Gentiles decided to swear allegiance for one reason or another to the One among them through Whom He manifested Himself. I suspect that He tried to get through to an Arab in the 530s AD, to an Indian prince in the 600s BC, to Iranians in the 600s BC and 1840s AD – and that they all got a piece of His message and dressed it up with their own imaginings. Oh, and while we’re at it, I’m positive He worked though a Pharaoh with disabilities about 3430 years ago, and have a strong hunch He was doing some major influencing of thinking in the Uppsala region about the time of Christ as well.**

I’ll agree with you about a certain Arab around 530 CE and possible the Iranians in 600 BCE and even the Pharoah, tho I think it’s a stretch of the imagination. I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about the Hindu prince. The Original Buddha never mentioned divine intervention in his enlightenment, he became ‘awake’ thru his own efforts. No god or goddess helped him. We’ll save the question of whether or not this means he, himself became a god in such a form for another thread. :slight_smile:

But this still doesn’t answer, to my satisfaction, the reason religious messages are so different. Unless you boil it down to a basic “be nice to each other”, which I think grossly oversimplifies what religion is all about, each faith practices something very different.

But lets look at it another way; suppose you’re right, that there is only one God and that Being is essentially the Judeo/Christian/Islamic God. Throughout the Torah, there are specific instructions for His worship and specific instructions to NOT worship Him in certain ways, to offer strange fire as specified in Samuel I, for example.

If there’s only One God, and YHWH is it, why are only certain forms of worship/sacrafice allowed and not others? It would seem that no matter what was sacraficed or who did it, it would end up going to YHWH anyway. So why the prohibitions?

I would argue that the Torah makes it clear there are other gods, but the Jews (and consequently, the Christians, too) are supposed to worship Him in a specific fashion and that mode of worship is one way to differentiate the Jews and Christians from their neighbors.

One other point; would it really be that bad that there were other gods? Why the insistence that there can be only one?

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Because otherwise, the Highlander movies would be too confusing.

:smiley:

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Not I, thank you very much. As I posted earlier, I do not share Polycarp’s concept of God. Given that, I may have said too much, with my words of “what I regard as the true Christians.” On the whole, I prefer to keep my own counsel about such things.

As to the issue of proseletyzing and conversion, my experience is that Poly, unless invited to express his own beliefs, does his “proseletyzing” by the example that he sets, not with any spiritual apologia he posts.

Then I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. In my view, Christianity, as it manifests in what I have learned about Polycarp, is NOT a religion; it is a state of being. Religion is what groups of people do with the messages given to them. Regarding an implied claim that Christianity is the only true spiritual path, I’ll let Poly’s most recent post to this thread speak for him. I hold no firm opinion about the question of inconsistent messages, so I’ll keep my own counsel here, too.

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I saw this mentioned early on, but it hasnt been mentioned at all on the second page, atleast not so in a way that I’d notice, but I have to ask, since the only words I can think of now that start with U are umbrella, united, under, up, and undulate which, while very fine words one and all, dont lend themselves to any particularly religious orientations.

What is a UU? Is it a religion? What does it entail, or, is it a joke?

from
Sneeze!

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Yes, but it is illegal to say it in Georgia.

:slight_smile:

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Unitarian Univesralist

74

Will read, will respond, be patient.

Esprix

75

…The way Christians blatently flaunt their lifestlye with in-your-face Fundamentalist Parades and National Fundamentalist Christian Pride Day.

Why don’t they all go back on the cross where they belong?

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Better known as “Christmas.” Or “Easter”?

77

Puh-leeze. I say again: puh-leeze. Every mall does not festoon itself with rainbow flags and play the Weather Girls over the public address system during the whole of the months of June and July. Stonewall Day is not a paid holiday for which I get time and a half. My national anthem does not mention queerness in both official languages. My country’s constitution does not “recognize the supremacy of RuPaul”. So let’s just stop that line of inquiry right there, shall we?

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And why not? A glaring omission, say I.