Christian idiocy at its best.
The thing about being “holy” and “just” in the eyes of thier lord that really ,really pisses me off is that it gives them a sense of power and entitlement. Case in point: In Florida, a Jacksonville Christian church has threatened to “go public” with their knowledge of a sexual relationship between one of their parishioners and her new boyfriend. (link)
The woman is not married, so she’s not screwing around on anyone. She’s single, healthy, and now has a boyfriend to whom she is no married. This means she is “living in sin”. Thing is, she (stupidly) confessed her “sin” to the minister this church in an attempt to get forgiveness for it. But, as her guy seems to be better at making her happy than the church was, she’s refused to leave him. Instead, she opted to leave the church.<BR>
<BR>But, like the spurned and jealous thing it is, the church is taking its revenge. Even though the woman doesn’t attend any longer, the minister is going to announce her “sins” in front of the whole congregation so everyone will know what an evil, godless harlot she is. (My guess is that half the congregation will despise her, and the other half will want her phone number. Either way, she’s screwed.)
While all this seems harsh, I want to point out that, theologically, she got off lucky. Whenever you leave a religion that you’ve bought into, it gets messy.
Scientologists send crack re-programmers after you, no matter where you go.
Jehovah’s Witnesses “shun” you… meaning you can’t ever talk to your own spouse and children, even if you live in the same house with them.
Islam, of course, is the simplest. A person who leaves thier faith is to be killed.
I am convinced that if every religion got together and held an amnesty day… a day when you could leave the faith forever with no punishment… these churches and mosques would be considerably emptier from that day on.
Morons.
Written by Wm. Hopper, http://www.heathensguide.com.
‘The Heathen’s Guide to Christmas’.
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December 20, 2008 at 7:39 am |
The obvious problem with your logic is you point out a wing-nut church and then extrapolate from there to all of Christianity. Of course, you fail to mention that Catholics wouldn’t advocate this sort of public statement of sin. It’s not true that “Whenever you leave a religion you’ve bought into it gets messy.” Only certain religions are sticky about people leaving.
Even if this church had treated the woman properly, she would still have to deal with a mess of some sort. There are always spiritual consequences to pre-marital sex since it is a rebellion against God.
Of course, we should pray for those people who can’t leave their religion without being killed.
December 20, 2008 at 1:16 pm |
This is your Catholic interpretation. There really are no evil, “spiritual consequences” to sin. Bad people can do well in this world. Very bad people can do very well. There is no cosmic “right” that punishes or blesses based on who you have sex with.
December 21, 2008 at 5:38 am |
Says you!
December 21, 2008 at 11:56 am |
I don’t understand why sex before marriage would be a rebellion against God. Sounds like a strange and jealous god. Maybe he’s a voyeur and hangs around in every bedroom of unmarried people? That’s also a way to keep oneself busy. Sure he has nothing better to do, he doesn’t mind if people starve to death (they are not rich enough to finance his church), get killed in wars (as long as the bombs were sanctified by his priests), he didn’t even mind to help the german fascists in high position to escape Germany and go to Southamerica, they had money and payed the Pope good, but sure, God hates love.
The Catholic God is only an excuse for frustrated, begrudging people to talk bad about others, to punish others in the name of a God that if he existed would be ashamed of his followers.
Imnho the spiritual consequence of pre-marital sex is joy if both partners love each others and know about contraception. 😀
Sorry if anybody got hurt by my rant, that isn’t my intention. I once worked nonpaid for a catholic charity organisation, and I worked with very nice people, but they were never interested in bullshit like crying about sex before marriage, their intent was to help people, no matter what religion those people had. To help people that had some bigger problems than gossiping about their neighbours.
But that was in Europe, maybe in USA helping people is nothing the Catholic God allows because he is too busy checking bedrooms.
Yes, says me. 🙂
December 23, 2008 at 7:12 pm |
God is beyond time. He is with you always, even as you stumble into another mixed-up person’s bed.
Define love.
I’ve seen hundreds of cases of this “love” leading to heartache, abandonment, stress, std’s, abortion, and psychological distress. The people who sanction pre-marital sex are oblivious to the pain of the people who don’t fare so well with it.
The rest of what you wrote is a rant with the intent of hurting people. You make unsubstantiated claims that you feel might hurt somebody, but you don’t take the time to eliminate them from your post. Ergo, intent.
December 23, 2008 at 7:31 pm |
Love does not exist. It’s usually just disguised lust or neediness masquerading as something more noble.
December 24, 2008 at 6:07 am |
I can’t tell you how sad it makes me to hear that.
December 24, 2008 at 1:24 pm |
This made me smile. 🙂
December 25, 2008 at 7:30 pm |
Okay. I’ve had a chance to recover from stanzebla’s sinical ways. Why delight in another’s pain, buddy?
Love based on need is still love. A man needs his wife, and a wife needs her husband. There’s no shame in admitting it. I’d much rather have love based on need than no love at all, which is your solution.
There are many forms of love you are omitting. For instance, I love my parents, and they love me. But the primary basis of need dissolved when I moved out. But we still love each other. Also, there’s Christian love. For instance, I love somebody like Terry Shiavo. I didn’t need her. Her husband obviously didn’t! I didn’t lust after her either. But I loved her, and would have saved her if I could have.
December 25, 2008 at 9:17 pm |
Lipstick on a pig. If you want to call neediness or horniness “love”, go ahead. But it doesn’t change the essence of what “love” actually is.
December 26, 2008 at 1:11 pm |
Nah Anita I doubt anybody was really hurt in this conversation. It was like: “Oh no how can you say Jesus actually had to shit like every other human person, butbutbut he is GOD.” 🙂
And if Maria wasn’t a virgin when she got a child a tiny world crumbles. She was pregnant before she married. 🙂
I don’t agree with heathensguide view upon love, but how he brought it in the discussion was adorable. (I only chose that word because my english is so bad btw, there is a specific german expression for “both partners agree” but I didn’t know the correct translation and thought I call it “love” to make it simple, sure that was not very clever, there were Jesus lovers around.)
Maybe you need someone to talk to, now you don’t have your parents around anymore. Someone to make you feel safe and such. “All is good” stuff, “all will end good” stuff. I actually doubt heathensguide is a good place to make believers feel secure.
Things do not necessarily end good and people do not necessarily want to get shepherded. Thinking, pure intellect, can lead into regions that can be disturbing. Most people are not strong enough to bear a lot of thinking. That is not meant as insult, I don’t want to say those people are stupid. Beliefs help people to survive. Nobody asks you to stop believing, it could kill you. I doubt heathensguide would want that, after all he sells books, dead christians can’t buy books.
I was an idiot to get angry about the bs you were talking, would have been better to feel sorry. Me bad, as usual. 🙂
February 26, 2009 at 11:49 am |
Hello, I put off buying this book during x-mas, now I can not find a copy anywhere.
Is there any way I can still buy a copy?
February 26, 2009 at 9:38 pm |
Sorry, the Heathen’s Xmas is seasonal. It will be out again come November. The Heathen’s Guide to World Religions is at http://www.heathensguide.com, but you’d have to wait for the Xmas one.
November 20, 2009 at 12:38 pm |
Hello,
It is now November, is there going to be a Heathen’s Xmas for me to buy?