And yes, within the context of your beliefs, while it was great sacrifice, I think most would endure crucifiction knowing there’s be an eternity in heaven afterwards. Not to mention the added bonus of saving humanity.
And, it’s not like that was the worst suffering ever endured. People have gone through suffering for much longer periods of time. How long was the crucifiction, a day? A couple days? People have been tortured for weeks and months. Probably years.
And yes, I’m a complete coward saying this stuff here, and not to you. But, you get distressed when I show any kind of skepticism to your religion, and you fear for my soul. You already frequently break down and cry because my father died last year without sharing your beliefs, and you imagine him in Hell.
But this has festering in my mind for years and MUST BE SAID!!!
I dread the day we talk after you finally see “The Passion Of The Christ”.
Methinks it’s time to have a talk with Mom about how a just and righteous god would not do anything unfair to his children, particularly to a guy so swell as Dad.
Because either Mom would start to realize that she’s being way worse than the god she professes to love, or at least her recalcitrance would be completely on the record.
So Jesus got crucified? So what? It was a common Roman punishment for provincials. Lots of non-citizen criminals and subversives got nailed up on the cross, but you don’t find Christers boo-hooing over them.
Mind you,the film is brilliantly made, but come on! What kind of insane, evil deity demands blood atonement from an innocent guy–God’s own Son!–for the sins of the world?
Seeing The Passion of the Christ only served to underline the foolishness of worshipping a deity who hypocritically weeps over a death that He ordained. God’s tear destroys the Temple–well, Whose bright idea was it to set up a universe where killing people is the only way to atone for sins like skipping church and watching porn?
Somehow, I doubt that belittling the religion of another is going to get anything accomplished. Revtim, you can listen to hand stabbers like Minty and gobear, who obviously have no clue regarding the theological concept of ineffability, or you can keep mum (pardon the pun).
You don’t have to share your mother’s religion, politics, or personal beliefs to respect her. Blindsinding her with childish and ignorant questions such as “Whose bright idea was it to set up a universe where killing people is the only way to atone for sins like skipping church and watching porn?” is as agressive and bigoted as Anne Coulter recently claiming that the tenents of Islam are to “kill everyone who doesn’t smell bad and doesn’t answer to the name Mohammed”.
It ain’t hard to be civil and tolerant. Keep believing what you believe and let your mother keep her beliefs, however much you may disagree with them. Your absolutely right, nothing good is going to come from attacking her religion.
I would also like you to read “tenent” as “tenet”, “your” as “you’re”, and respect my right to make typos, however addle-brained you may believe them to be.
Og save me. That’s the first time I’ve seen anyone besides Libertarian use the phrase “hand stabber” as an epithet for atheists. I do hope it’s not catching on.
And I doubt even Lib would use the term for minty or gobear. He reserves it for radical atheist types who freak out at the mere mention of religion.
Gobear, I’m not particularly religious, but I found your post to be quite offensive. You know, it is possible to be a Christian and not a “fundy” who believes all gays are sinners.
I thought that someone who would like others to be tolerant of their life would lead by example…
Ferrous, though I probably got the term from Lib (or at least from this board), I think this is the first time I’ve ever used it. I don’t think it’s catching on. I just needed something pejorative for posters who would describe Revtim’s mother’s God as “insane” and “evil” after hearing that she worries about the souls of her family.
Having misplaced my pamphlet on insults for atheists, “hand stabber” was all I could think of. The phrase seemed to fit the vicious and bigoted kneejerk reactions to Revtims’s mother. Perhaps “assholes” would have sufficed.
This is entirely the wrong tactic to improve understanding between you and your mother.
You need to not belittle her religion, and you need a (less fundie) third party religious leader - eg a universalist who believes that God redeems everyone eventually, even remote jungle tribes that have never heard of Him - to talk things through with you both. And if you are an atheist - fine. But some people NEED religion, and your mother obviously does. Take a stance of being and open agnostic - to humour her, out of lovingkindness - after all what does it cost you?
If you are in the superior mental position to see through false doctrine and the lies of many organised religions, have compassion for the weaker minded who cannot. Some people will never be strong enough to question what their priest or leader says.
Okay, but anybody not familiar with Lib’s posts isn’t going to know what you’re talkng about. I only know because I asked him what the hell it meant once, after seeing him use it several times.
Hmm…how about “theophobe”? Fairly well-known prefix and suffix, plus the similarity to “homophobe”, so everyone would know what you were going for. Then we could have the same sort of semantic wrangling as with “homophobe”, with atheists saying “I’m not afraid of God, I just don’t believe in him!”
Oh, and just to avoid possible misunderstanding: I’m an atheist (theophobe ) myself. I’m not trying to be insulting to atheists. Just that I find the term “hand stabber” a bit silly.
Fairly off-topic, but IIRC Sen. McCain was tortured (on and off, perhaps, but IIRC more on than off) for six years.
Re: the OP, I would recommend against the sort of confrontation recommended by other posters. It’s clear where your mother’s thoughts are right now, and most of them are in her heart, not her mind. That she is bothered by the thought of her husband in hell, rather than the thought that she might just be wrong, tells you all you need to know.
Trying to talk down to her, however, or approaching this from the standpoint that she’s a silly girl with irrational beliefs typical of nomadic shepherds but wholly inappropriate for this century, will probably not get you the results you want. YMMV, however. Do let us know how it goes if you decide to go through with it:)
If Minty and gobear are anything like me, it’s not a matter of having no clue regarding theological concepts, it’s a matter of choosing to cut to the chase and ignore large amounts of obfuscatory blather. You say “childish and ignorant”. I agree that children do have a way of asking blunt, obvious questions uninhibited by the layers of emperor’s new clothes otherwise known as theology.
No. It isn’t.
Anyway, I appreciate that none of this is going to help Revtim and his Mother, sorry.
Care to elaborate on that? How is grossly and purposedly misrepresenting an entire religion not agressive and bigoted? Please show me the fundamental difference between Anne Coulter’s statement and gobear’s question. Both claim that a particular religion calls for the deaths of people (plural) for minor infractions. Neither Islam nor Christianity is even close to how the broad brushes of these two idiots have painted them. Listening to gobear, you would think that Christians believe martyrs are required to save the world from Jenna Jameson.
This seems as good a place as any to say my piece on the matter.
I don’t know what to do; as a Christian and a regular attendee of an active Methodist church, I am being strongly encouraged to see this film - a few of the leaders who have seen it have described it as distressingly violent, graphic, shocking and sickening, and yet they are the same people urging me to watch it.
For some reason, I don’t really want to see it.
So violence in movies, and peer pressure is sometimes a good thing. Apparently.
