My faith in the Lord is about the pure, simple values: raising children right, saying grace at the table, strictly forbidding those who are Methodists or Presbyterians from receiving communion because their beliefs are heresies, and curing homosexuals. That’s all. Just the core beliefs. You won’t see me going on some frothy-mouthed tirade about being a comfort to the downtrodden.
November 24, 2008
I’m not one of those ‘Love Thy Neighbour’ Christians
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Why is religion more about what you can’t do than what you can do?
And if it is the same God, how come with some religions it is OK to, say, eat pork and not OK for other religions?
Just down the road from where I live is a little church that does the Catholic mass in Latin – like God is going to say ’sorry you’re off to hell’ because the mass must be in Latin, isn’t English (or whatever language you speak) good enough?
Doesn’t it all seem like its just made up? Case in point – the Vatican have now forgiven John Lennon for saying ‘The Beatles are more popular than Jesus’, like John Lennon cares?
Comment by Ieuan — November 24, 2008 @ 9:37 am
Hi Danyl
Great link! There is a growing sense that “neocon” Evangelical Christianity has lost its way. The faith inspired by Jesus Christ is relational, spiritual, and redemptive. Not legalistic, power-seeking, or greedy. The secular culture idolises money, sex, and power; the Christian counterculture ought to reflect the ancient virtues of poverty, chastity, and humility.
The god I don’t believe in
I do not believe in such a god: my god is the other God.
(please excuse the lengthy comment)
Comment by ropata — November 24, 2008 @ 10:05 am
Death Taxes and political intrigue – that’s what we’re guaranteed in life. As for religion, it’s the best scam yet invented by hedonists, for hedonists. If you look at the lifestyle of the heads of virtually all formal religions you will see things to envy and very little you wouldn’t be prepared to do to achieve the good stuff.
I believe in cash, the indestructibility of matter, the love of a parent for a child, the unpredictability of the weather and the unfathomability of women; the rest I leave to the paying punter!
Comment by shocked and stunned — November 24, 2008 @ 10:15 am
“like John Lennon cares?”
Ditto Jesus.
Comment by llew — November 24, 2008 @ 10:36 am
There is something weirdly circular about taking a bigoted view of Christian bigots. But perhaps I am just being bigoted.
Comment by macdoctor01 — November 24, 2008 @ 2:16 pm
What a bigoted, anti-Christian thread. What is so wrong with helping the poor and down-trodden, the needy, etc. What is wrong with kindess and caring? Yours sounds like the New Age god, that is, do whatever you want, whenever you want and don’t worry about the consequences, it’s okay to be hedonstic, greedy and me-orientated. Sums up our society of today, somehow. Sad.
Comment by Tanya — November 24, 2008 @ 3:53 pm
“What a bigoted, anti-Christian thread. What is so wrong with helping the poor and down-trodden, the needy, etc. ”
hee hee – Tanya, click through to the Onion, a satirical site that Danyl has quoted here.
Comment by llew — November 24, 2008 @ 4:18 pm
Correct me if I am wrong, but Tanya’s comment seems to have been written by a machine. It is one that has been made many times before, perhaps by some automated knee-jerk which responds to any post that criticises fundamentalist Christianity.
Comment by Paul Litterick — November 24, 2008 @ 5:57 pm
Wrong. (Well, you asked)
It is one that has been made many times before, perhaps by some automated knee-jerk which responds to any post that criticises fundamentalist Christianity.
Another one of those eternal questions. Which came first, the knee or the jerk who caused it?
Comment by ZenTiger — November 24, 2008 @ 9:25 pm
I’m not sure why its okay to make fun of politicians, ACT supporters, greenies ect but not Christians. Besides, this post clearly makes fun of a very specific type of Christian, for whom Leviticus and the Book of Revelations is important, the Sermon on the Mount and Letter to the Romans not so much.
Comment by Danyl Mclauchlan — November 25, 2008 @ 7:38 am
So Ropata, you’re chucking the entire Old Testament in the bin then are you? That’s an odd form of Christianity…
Comment by Bearhunter — November 25, 2008 @ 8:42 am
Tania
>What a bigoted, anti-Christian thread>
I think you’ll find that Christianity is just one religion in relation to this thread. Certainly my earlier comment was all embracing of formal religions, including but not limited to Christianity.
I much prefer dis-organised religions, like Gaianism. As far as I am aware, and I am a practicing Gaianist (as I doubt I will ever get it right) there has never been a gathering together of Gianists, nor has any Gianist asked that a collection be taken. Excellent religion, to be practiced exactly as I/We/Gaia explained through the fingers of the prophet Isaac Asimov.
Comment by shocked and stunned — November 25, 2008 @ 9:34 am
Yes, you’re wrong, I am mot a machine. Either you are a fundamentalist bible-believing Christian, or you are taking the mickey from the word. Love Thy Neighbour is the best way to go, instead of making up your own religion. Tanya, with a y.
Comment by Tanya — November 25, 2008 @ 5:53 pm
Bearhunter, well I’m chucking out certain conceptions of God which have more in common with Islam than Christianity
Comment by ropata — November 27, 2008 @ 10:16 am