That’s classic Mockingbird…
The point of the reference is that God sends both good and bad things into everyone’s life. So, those who use Judeo-Christian references to berate others for complaining about things are being selective in their quoting.
yosemitebabe, I’m with you. I’m sometimes amazed at how much I identify as Christian around here, but I get all creepy and nervous in Christian bookstores, and generally feel like I’m waiting for someone to denounce me as not a Christian. Then, of course, I see the books denouncing Harry Potter, and it gets worse. As I just said over in GD, if I have to tell you I’m a Christian, I’m doing a lousy job of it! Saying you’re a Christian does not give you an excuse to behave badly. If anything, in my opinion, it gives you even less of an excuse.
CJ
Happy-sappy stuff makes me cringe, whether it’s Christian or fuzzy-bunny Wiccan or just plain Kountry Kitsch. Little kids with big eyes, sunflowers, puppy dogs, cute fluffy kittens, vapid poems about footprints or rainbows, heartwarming stories about crabby old men who become loving orphanage volunteers because of an anonymous visitor leaving a birthday card…bleah!
Pwecious Moments, Thomas Kinkade, Love Is…, the lispy little girl in the Welch’s commercials. Bleah.
I saw a card once that amused me. On the front two people were looking over a card rack, with one guy laughing and the woman cooing over cutesy cards. Her “voice” says “I wanted to get you a cute bunny card, and my husband wanted to send something raunchy, so we comprimised.” On opening the card you see a cutesy, wutsey, bunny, hopping through a flowered meadow, and saying “Happy Birthday, scumbag!”
Oh, I hope jayjay never sets foot in my store. I hate cleaning up puke.
Talked to the woman who runs the Christian bookstore in the mall today. She bought a bunch of inexpensive, paperback Bibles and posted a sign: If You Need a Bible, Please Ask, and We Will Give You One.
Says this hasn’t stopped the Bible thiefs.
Well, where I’m from, waitresses don’t like working on Sunday because Christians are the worst tippers. Well, that said, I’ve never had a problem tipping, unless service is really bad. And I’ve had some bad service, and tend to think that, because I haven’t tipped, I’m grouped into that class. When I do tip I’m forgotten, which is the majority of the time, I’m forgotten.
Not only that, but every time I walk under a street light, I am able to shut it off by my mere preasance.
Well, it’s a little simpler than that… it’s just “Thou speakest as the foolish women speak!”
I did the Sunday after church brunch shift in a café, and besides the poor tipping hypocrisy among the “Righteous” was rampant.
There was one man who was a witnessing type of Christian and very self righteous (He once said that his pure christian life style was the reason why the blood bank always wanted his blood & his blood was pure enough to give to newborns) - yet this man sometimes forgot to bring enough money to pay his bill and a tip and promised to tip next time. Then him and his friends would try to scam one another into the Amway-esqe multilevel marketing scheme of the week.
Then there was another proud Christian who would forget that he’s ordered sausage & eggs and berate me for not having brought him Bacon & Eggs - which he did not order.
Another one of this crowd would insult people, I was a computer science student and a senior customer was getting a computer & I said I could give her a hand shopping if she’d like - the SOB said to a friend with in ear shot, that I was too stupid to turn a computer on.
This church going crowds biggest crime was that they were against anyone, except me the lowly sub-human waitress doing any work on Sunday. The treatment I received from this holier than thou crowd was just abysmal. The Christian crowd lied about what they ordered if they changed their mind, they stole from one another, and they definitely didn’t treat me like a human, never mind treating me like a brother or sister.
I’ve met good Christians many times, but this crowd was about the biggest bunch of hypocrites, and if the Christian view of God & heaven & hell is correct, I can’t understand how a good person who is not a Christan would not go to heaven and any of these people would be allowed within the gates of any place other than hell.
Well, y’know, Jesus had the same problem with Pharisees.
Don’t remember much from Sunday School, but I seem to recall that Jesus took exception to the way these guys acted because they were a buncha hypocritical, pseudo-pious pricks, who acted as if they had a license to behave badly because they were God’s Chosen.
As I recall, Jesus converted several of them, and some of the others were among the “political connections” that wound up getting him crucified, although I could be wrong on that.
Seems like some things just DO not change…
Did it occur to anyone that maybe the people that buy these cards are non-Christians buying cards for their Christian friends and relatives - and are really annoyed at having to do that?
I grew up in a highly devout Christian community, and the truth is, Christians are typically your average cross-section of humanity. That used to bug me - because I tried to live by ‘Christian’ values even though I lost my faith, because they seemed like good values to me. Be nice to people, be charitable, polite, don’t make messes and expect others to clean them up, don’t kill people you don’t have to, etc… (-: It used to bug me that I’d see the same kinds of rude behaviour in Christians as in anyone else. With one exception - in Church, they are all hyper-polite.
Then there is another, smaller group of Christians - those who are ‘Christian’ to assuage the guilt from their own terrible behaviour. My own uncle is one of those. He screws people over big time in his private life, then goes to church (where he’s an elder) and acts ultra-friendly and pious and in general puts on a smarmy act so thick I want to beat him to death with his briefcase. I can’t stand people like this, and they do immense damage to the church because they cause people like me to go, “I don’t want to have anything to do with a Church that lets this guy assuage his guilt over being a rat.”
Then, my good sir, I think this is for you: Pea Soup for the Cynic’s Soul
Enjoy!
I do like cute animals, though. Anything with cats or bunnies or something like that. I’m a sucker for animals. But I HATE glurge.
Our family has some nice Christian things, though. Like those porcelain bisque statuettes from Lennox. We have a gorgeous one of the Virgin Mary-it was a gift from a family in our parish to my father. They had an infant who died, and my father did the funeral arrangements.
When my son died,Guinastsia, a friend gave me the Willow Tree Angel of Remembrance, and I was touched, not offended, because she was sincere in her effort to console me and assure me of her sorrow – and the Willow Tree line is quite nice. On the other hand, the angel sculptures that look like Barbies with wings and have names like “Kimberley, Angel of Bicycles” are just gross.
I will check out the link you sent.
Everyone understands, I’m sure, that I’m not flaming people who are sincere.
And, Sam Stone, I don’t think these people are non-Christians. They say “have a blessed day,” if they aren’t being rude, they talk preachy-talk. My partner is an agnostic, and when she buys a card for a believer she buys one that expresses her affection, concern, good wishes, congratulations, etc. sincerely, but not religiously. My Jewish friends send “Seasons Greetings” cards. I send Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah cards, but not in an “annoyed” mood. When I want to wish a friend happiness on a religious holy day that isn’t mine, I don’t do it with malice! I don’t think non-Christians are buying “Christian Expressions” cards.
Well, I think anyone doing that is taking God’s name in vain, but that’s just me. My friend who worked at customs said any time someone said "Praise God’ they’d pull them over. That said, those are the ones that stick in your mind, and I believe there are a lot of decent Christians as well. And being religious and knowing Jesus are different.
You think simpering ‘Buffy angel of manicures’ figurines are bad? Let me tell you, you guys are lucky. I grew up in a house crammed full of the most incredible religious crapart gimcracks. 
My mother, you see, collected angels. It didn’t matter how sappy or ugly or shoddy they were. We had angels made of felt and straw and leather and punched tin and woven grapevines and macaroni! We had ‘angel’ pot holders. We had ‘angel’ towels. We had ‘angel’ wall hangings. We had a crocheted ‘angel’ toilet paper cover!
It didn’t even matter if the base form was human. We had ‘angel’ teddy bears. We had ‘angel’ cat pillows on the couch. We had an ‘angel’ ceramic TOAD in our garden! Slap a pair of wings on anything, and my mother would have to buy it.
There was not a single wall outside my own bedroom that didn’t sport an entire array of angel “inspiration” pieces and angel “art.” Not a single horizontal surface that wasn’t packed cheek by jowl with the kitschy klutter. You could not set a cup down on a coffee table or take a book out of bookcase without risking an avalanche of angels.
This insured I never once invited any of my friends to our house the whole time I was growing up. It insured that I fled to my own place within 24hrs of getting my HS diploma.
We are now in the process of paring my mother’s possessions down now, since she will be moving from a four bedroom house to a one bedroom apartment in an assisted living community. This means evicting these angels by the thousands.
She finds this wrenching, and I’m sorry for that, but I gotta confess that each time I haul the latest box of culls out to the garage I slam dunk them one by one into the trash can. Take that, angel holstein! <Crash!> Sayonara, angel punched tin lantern! <Bang!> Die, angel owl and angel pussycat salt and pepper shakers! <Wham! Wham!>
It feels soooooo good.
Emphasis mine.
I find it horrifying that the evil dwelling within my grandfather (until he died) is not present in your uncle.
If my grandfather is any indication, your uncle will live to be a very old man.
Men with small penises buy expensive cars. Christians with the equivalent problem (or maybe the same one … I don’t know as I’ve never cared to know what an asshole’s dick looked like) buy especially elaborate Bibles. Because, y’know, the more deep your faith is, the more lavish your Bible is. I believe the relevant quote from Shakespeare is “methinks he doth protest too much.”
My father the monk has a bible that fits in every pocket any of his pants has. My sister the theology student (readers of my livejournal will know why I cite her; for others, she doesn’t give a shit if she offends me regarding my sexuality, which is one reason I rarely talk to her and even moreso since I blocked her from contacting me via AIM) has quite a few and they are each more lavish than the next. I am not sure this theory completely holds up in churches, though, since they really have more money to spend on stuff like this and they’re supposed to be financially reverent.
Er, change “not dwelling in your uncle” to “now dwelling in your uncle”.
Re: Christians and tipping.
I am sure that I delivered pizza to devout Christians who tipped well, and never had any clue as to their beliefs. I am sure I delivered pizza to devout Christians who tipped poorly if at all, and never had any clue as to their beliefs.
I am also sure that I did not, ever, deliver pizza to someone whom I knew was a Christian from the stickers on the bumper and the crap hanging around the door who tipped at all.
Hijack over, carry on.
I’m sorry, punha, but you’re being overbroad here. There are some very useful Bibles, which come with useful additions such as annotations, concordances, historical references or parallel versions which are all about study. My everyday, devotional reading Bible is simple and actually a paperback that I’ve had to recover from all of its use. But my study Bible is one of those “lavish” ones that has lots of references which I use very frequently.
There are two reasons why these Bibles seem “lavish” – they’re large, but that’s so that all of the print can be large enough to be read without strain. They’re also frequently covered in heavy-gauge leather, but like fine old books, that’s meant for durability. (See above note about paperback Bible and the need for recovering.) hese aren’t show Bibles, these are meant for regular and serious use.
Undoubtedly there are those who buy them because they think that they look good, the same kinds of hypocrites who dress to the nines for church but have some justification for their unwillingness to donate to the clothing bank for the poor, the ones who go out to eat after church, mistreat the server, refuse to tip and never donate to the food bank. These people should not be looked at as good examples of what real Christians are about.
I wish you joy, StarvingButStrong!!
Not to hijack my own OP, but I’d like to do what you’re doing with all the angel crap everywhere. And, I’m sick and tired of people who say an angel was involved with every nice or noble thing (or every coincidence) that happens. Story in the paper the other day has a family insisting “angels in the desert” saved their family member whose tank was hit by a missile in Iraq. Story goes on to identify the three Marines who actually pulled this guy out of his burning tank. Did the family thank them? Hell, no. They just gibbered on about f—ing angels.
I delayed leaving work one day to give directions to an out-of-towner. That probably kept me from being involved in a major accident at the mall exit. But the guy who asked me how to get to Lexington Ave. was a person, not the angel my neighbor insisted he must be when I told her about the accident.