Who do you believe is receptive to your messages here? If you’re trying to bring someone over to see God’s [noun], who is meant to receive this message and think not “I wish she’d see how judgmental and rude she’s being” but “I see God’s love in her posts”? Cuz I, for one, didn’t fall for it when JC or JD did it, when H4E did it, when … well, anyone else did it.
But hey, if your purpose is actually to alienate intelligent people from God (really, your perception of Him and His rules, which I thought Christ came to change, but that’s just one monk’s perception), you’re doing a bang-up job, madam:) I know I’d have lots of fun being in your presence, what with all that premarital sex and birth control and lack of churchgoing in my life. Yup, I don’t think I’d ancitipate any sort of judgment on your part.
Who, again, did Jesus hang out with, and what did he try doing with them? I get the feeling you don’t know how to wash sandled feet…
As facts, logic, and reason began to rear their ugly heads in a forum like this, vanilla at some point must face a crucial choice: modify or abandon her faith, or close off her mind and retreat further into fundamentalism.
It appears vanilla has found another messageboard that is the exact opposite of this one. She is struggling between two worlds: One that fights ignorance, and another one that embraces it. I pray that she makes the right choice.
I think vanilla is simply repeating Christ’s words, not making any judgements. Whatever judgement is in those words was made by the originator, not the repeater.
And certainly it is her place to warn people, misguided as her warnings are. Are you saying that if you believed people would miss out on heaven, and maybe burn in hell, you wouldn’t warn people because you don’t want to seem judgemental? I find that utterly sensless and bizarre. “I would have let that guy know about how to avoid getting anally raped for all eternity by Satan’s spiked flaming member, and live forever in bliss by God’s side basking in His eternal love, but I didn’t want to seem all preachy!”
Hmmmm . . . Getting anally raped for all eternity by Satan’s spiked flaming member . . . Or living forever in bliss by God’s side basking in His eternal love . . .
Well, actually, to be perfectly fair to them–it’s not. It’s not the Left Behind board for starters, if that’s what you’re thinking.
I post there, too, although I usually don’t think of much to say, and there are actually some balanced and thoughtful discussions that take place. It’s not the Fundie Circle Jerk and 24/7 Jack Chick Festival you may think it is.
It’s not the fact that she’s warning people that we find offensive–it’s the manner in which she’s doing it.
Right way: Addressing oneself to people’s individual needs and delivering a carefully worded, personalized, caring warning to the individual in question.
Wrong way: Standing on the street corner and bellowing at passersby, “Jesus is the Way!! You are ALL going to BURN in Hell–forever!!!”
See the difference? I’m not saying, “Don’t warn people for fear of offending them”, I’m saying, “Don’t merely broadcast a blanket warning in a self-righteous tone and then retire the field, smugly assuming that you’ve ‘done all you can’ and that now it’s ‘up to them’.”
That seems pretty fair. I was trying to avoid commenting on the individual personalities involved and make a general comment, but I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with your characterization of the situation here.
Do you see how I might have gotten the impression, from your words here, that this might not be the case?
BTW: preaching the Gospel (something about the Great Commission comes to mind, but darned if I can’t remember what it is…) here isn’t going to land you in the Land of Flames. Preaching “There is only one way to get saved and it is my way, so if you don’t go with my way you’re screwed” … well, you saw how well that went over.
It’s not that you’re a Christian. It’s that you’re blind to the fact that your particular manner of evangelization (something in the style of some of your fellow Blue Moon Boarders) do not commonly work here and has never worked particularly well. You might try (with me, anyway, and with some other folks for sure) something with fewer parts Fire and Brimstone, Rules and Regulations … and a few more hugs. Is that watering down your faith? Perhaps to you. I just don’t understand the stance of a F&BRR evangelist preaching out of a book the most relevant (IMO, anyway - the Gospels) parts of which talked about the life of a man who came (and left) to LOVE. If your message intends to be one of love, you might examine what sort of filter it’s going through that it ends up looking to us as it does.
You saw how gobear and I reacted to your posts. Surely you are not trying to be a witness to the sort of being we should both give our lives to, worship, try to lead others to … surely this is not the being you know, the one you have represented in this thread? Is it possible that in your zeal to ensure that Hell is empty you have missed your mark a touch? You will reach me (as others have) in hearts, not in spades or clubs. Let someone else perhaps be attracted by the bright lights and burning flesh of fire and brimstone. I tend to shy away from stuff that might burn me, but am often up for a nice warm hug.
If I might interject, is it even necessary to evangelize these days? I mean, aside from some remote African tribes (who obviously don’t have Internet access, which makes it a moot point as far as this discussion is concerned), is there anyone out there who doesn’t know what Christianity is all about? When one evangelizes on a message board such at this, what exactly is one hoping to accomplish?
Tell us how happy you are to be a Christian. Let us know that you’ve found peace in Christ. Only the most vocal of non-Christians will react to that. But for fuck’s sake, don’t hit us over the head with the basic tenants of the largest religion in the world as if it were breaking news hot off the presses. “There is no way to the Father but through the Son”? No shit? I think I might actually have heard that before. . . about five million times.
Sheesh, if you’re going to spread the Good News, at least make it something different and interesting. Otherwise it’s just going to make it look like you think we’re both Hell-bound and stupid.
Sadly, sometimes it seems like it’s Bad News being preached: we’re, all of us who aren’t Christians or have some flaw in our lives, horrible sinners who don’t deserve God’s love at all and should hope He doesn’t send eternal damnation toward our miserable existences.
Thing is, that’s been done to death too … and of the two options, the one more likely to get me NOT to think “What a waste of time it is to listen tothat raving looney” isn’t the one that tells me I’m going to Hell or I’m bad or whatever. I may be part masochist, but telling me I’m a bad person ain’t a good way to get me to give credence to what you have to say.
vanilla, on that other board I’ve seen people accusing at least one of ours here of watering down the Gospel. Given that his witness is one of few things that keeps me thinking there might, just might, be something to what he has to say, d’ye think it’s possible he’s onto something what that whole “love” schtick? Worked well enough for God as a reason to kill his only son…
People like Vanilla are just expressing the bitterness and ugliness in their own heads.
They don’t truly believe that God has a plan for everyone. They don’t truly believe that God is a God of love.
Their tainted minds are limited by their very corruption: they can only believe in a God of ignorant, judgemental hate.
As such, they feel a need to reinforce that they are the good ones, not like all those other people who are damned.
The idea of a God who is not characterized by ignorant and judgemental hate is impossible for such people to hold. They may try, but inevitably it will be purged from their skulls by the toxins which reside therein.
This comes out in lines such as the one where Vanilla tells all women with unwanted pregnancies they shouldn’t have “let guys use them for sex.”
The absurdity of such a sentence, while glaringly obvious to observers, is nonetheless concealed from its author by their bestial need to devalue others, to tear others down, in an effort to reinforce their own status as one of the “good ones”.
Because surely, the worse someone else is, the better they must be in comparison.
Almost invariably, the thing they attack people for is something that goes against their definition of themself, rather than what the bible says.
For example, straight people of Vanilla’s type will go after gays, and sexless people of that type will go after those who have sex.
Naturally, they turn a blind eye to their own larger faults. Their idea is that by strenuously attacking someone else for a fault they don’t have, they will prove that they are good.
It’s sort of like a child of an abusive parent who constantly harps on how bad their sibling is, in the hopes that said sibling will be the one that gets hurt, and that they will somehow gain the favor of their abuser.
They always fail to see the underlying problem - why are they acting as though God is an abusive parent?
Why don’t they consider that, just maybe, God wasn’t lying when he said he loved us?
Are we truly so despicable that God could never love us, and our only chance is to make sure he hates our brothers and sisters more?
Do we really need to “water down” the bible in order to believe God loves us?
I don’t think so. The bible never says God hates us all. It never says he gives us no chances. It never says he is an abuser. These conclusions come from a certain kind of mind. A very sad kind of mind.
In the end, I can only feel sorry for such people. They believe that there is an evil God, and their words are based on a wild fear.
First off, very nicely put, Nighttime. It’s a conclusion I came to myself a while ago, and you put it eloquently.
I was going to post this last night, but I was harboring one last hope this thread wasn’t started by the woman I was looking forward to meeting in real life earlier this month. That hope is dashed. I have had time to think about what I’m about to post, and I stand by it.
Right. My feet are planted a comfortable distance apart, knees bent, back straight, a stance even Sweetums would approve of. Sword and dagger are in hand (they’re metaphorical and fencing, of course), and not interfering with each other, though they are pointed at the target. Enough of this defense nonsense – it’s time to attack!
Let me explain something to you, Vanilla, and to anyone else who has the temerity to accuse me of watering down the gospel or saying anything to be popular. I alluded to my misspent youth earlier. Let me tell you the brutal, ugly, truth of it and the reason I am required to defend others when people like you attack them. You see, I have been called useless, worthless, sinful, condemned, hated, reviled and constantly attacked by anyone remotely respectable. When I was a teenager, if I smiled at a boy, that was an insult. I was told constantly “You’re not welcome here,” “You’re not good enough to be here,” “Get out of here.” My situation at home wasn’t any better. There I was called stupid, useless, and a waste. Not good enough for heaven? Hell, I wasn’t good enough for my high school prom. Those days are over 20 years in the past, and the damage that was done in those days has healed for the most part, but they did shape me, and the scars remain.
Yes, I’m a Christian. I’ve said the magic words, I frequently darken the doors of a church, and I pray even more often. A personal relationship with Christ? The Man’s been known to interfere in my love life, for crying out loud! The thing is, I was a Christian when the stuff I mentioned in the last paragraph was happening, too. The people I who were telling me I was worthless, useless, and unwanted were also Christians. I didn’t know of any good in me. Because hardly anyone told me I was worth anything, I didn’t believe I was. The only place in town I could go and not be insulted to my face was my hometown’s Episcopal Church. The only place. If they, too, had told me I was worthless, sinful, and lost, this board would have one more atheist, if I’d managed to live that long.
When I read you telling others that they are condemned, but you are saved, you may as well be telling me I am condemned. I’ve been an outsider all my life. How dare you sit on your throne, arrogant in your salvation while insulting those who don’t have the privilege of being like you or having had your experiences? Telling people they are going to hell is an insult, not a warning. How dare you tell me so-and-so’s not good enough for heaven when apparently you are? How dare you the members of a Protestant church’s youth group who insulted me and turned me away are worthy of heaven because they were Christians while the Jewish kid who befriended me will burn for all eternity because he’s not?
I’ve got news for you, folks. I’m not good enough to go to heaven, not on my own merits. I know that. I also know what it’s like to be outcast, excluded and, if you will, left behind. I remember what it was to be the lonely little girl who was taught “Everyone is welcome but you.” In those days, I swore a vow to God that I would not exclude others as they excluded me. Knowing myself unworthy of salvation, I will not say that others are unworthy of it. I will not deny others admission to the feast I long for. As long as one person is outside the gate, I will not go in. Instead, I’ll take my place with the beggars, lepers, tax collectors, and prostitutes. I’ve got more in common with them.
The religious experience which shaped my adult life didn’t take place when I was happy and prosperous. It came while I was lying in a mental hospital, nearly catatonic, unable to pray, nearly dead in soul. I didn’t find God; God found me. What broke that catatonia, got through the awful pain and fear which imprisoned me wasn’t any action of my own will. I had no will. It wasn’t any word I said. I was silent. (Yeah, I know, me who won’t shut up!) It wasn’t medication either – I was misdiagnosed at the time. During the Eucharist, God did something – I don’t know what; I wasn’t exactly thinking at the time – and brought me to a place where I could think, speak, and respond to the world. It hurt badly, and I had a lot of work ahead of me, but it happened, and it’s why I’m here instead of dead or mad for over a decade.
Vanilla, I’ll refer you to Matthew 25, the parable of the sheep and the goats. I’ll also mention Matthew 7:21-23 (Jesus speaking again):
You see, I don’t know if I am a sheep or a goat, a righteous person or an evildoer. I try to do what I think God has called me to; I also know that if God is the way Lynn73 depicts Him, I am terribly wrong and, by this verse’s standards, I am an evildoer and condemned.
Nevertheless, because I know what it is like to be condemned by everyone who fancies himself righteous, I will continue to defend others. I will continue to speak of the mercy God showed me when I was less than nothing (not that I claim to be much now), and I will oppose those who are quick to point out the splinter in others’ eyes while ignoring the log in their own, even if right now I may be doing just that. What you do to the least of my brothers, so you do also to me. If you condemn someone for not being a Christian, you condemn me. The Gospel I aspire to live up to is not water, but sweet, strong wine, which sings in my blood and bones with a music I cannot ignore. It strengthens me and sustains me and I will fight when I see it used to weaken others. If you attack my brothers or sisters for not being what you want them to be, you attack me. Fortunately, I like playing with swords.
By warning people, she has already passed judgement on how they do or do not behave. She is taking her interpretation of the bible as the final word; as god’s interpretation. She’s not god, and to warn people of the consequences of their behavior is certainly judgemental.
Not how many Bibles you bash across someone’s head. Not how loudly you scream that everybody that doesn’t think the same way you think is going to hell. Not by being judgmental. Not by going to church every time the doors open and making sure everyone knows it. Not by wearing the T-shirts, having the fish on your car or seeing The Passion eight gazillion times. (FTR I haven’t seen it).
How you live your life.
I don’t feel the need to post long drawn out threads detailing my every belief and how I worship. If somebody wanted to know that badly, then I would be happy to share it via email. I prefer that when people think of me and my stance on religion that they think that I lived my life according to what I said I believed.
That I loved God with all my heart, soul and mind and that I loved my neighbor as myself. That’s it. Not which denomination I was affiliated with. Not how often I visited a church. Not by anything else.
Ah, my admirably Christian friend, now you’ve opened up the can of worms labeled “Faith Versus Works”. That should be good for another page or two, don’t you think?
For what it’s worth, I believe that any God who could be circumscribed by human definition isn’t worth a burnt chicken liver.
