Thursday, December 16, 2004

Thinking About Us

Anti-Christian? Me?

Some comments lately have caused me to have a look at my site as a whole, and I can see how people could gain the impression that I’m anti-Christian.

I’m not – let me say that, just for clarity.

I like Christians – actual Christians*. I spend a lot of time lurking on Christian websites, for instance. And I’m a big fan of Jesus himself, his philosophy and his teachings. The Sermon on the Mount is one of my favorite pieces of wisdom literature.

What I’m opposed to is hatred and ignorance.

Frequently those do attach to religion – not always the Christian religion, of course. There are ignorant and hateful Jews, ignorant and hateful Muslims, ignorant and hateful (I suppose – I haven’t actually met any) Unitarians out there. I just happen to live in an area of the country where I am surrounded by a large number of ignorant and hateful fundamentalist Christians.

And, thanks to the recent election, lots of ignorant and hateful Right-Wing Christians are putting their opinions forth into public view – attempting to force the rest of the country to adhere to their ignorant and frequently hateful worldviews.

I don’t see it as anti-Christian for me to object to that. I see it as anti-hate, and anti-ignorance.

Specifically, for instance, when some fundamentalist Christian says that because he or she believes that God created the world in seven days six thousand years ago therefore the public school system that my tax dollars pay for should teach an ignorant “alternative” theory called “intelligent design,” I don’t see it as anti-Christian to object to that. I see it as anti-ignorance.

When some fundamentalist Christian says she needs to persecute a seven-year-old child because her backwater religion teaches her that gay people are evil, I don’t see it as anti-Christian to object to that. I see it as anti-hate.

I suppose I should seek more balance on the site. I would, if people would start doing more intelligent and kind things.

What's up with people, anyway?






*The Christians I know and like, btw, the ones I admit I think of as “real” Christians, aren’t hanging around obsessing over gay people and evolution and who’s having abortions or using what kind of birth control or saying “damn” too often. The real Christians are too busy making a difference in the world to fiddle with trivia like that.

Maybe I should post about some of them.

1 comment:

zelda1 said...

It is hard to understand the Bible belt unless you live in it everyday. There are churches, Baptist, Pentecostal, Assembly of God, and more Baptist on every corner. On Sunday morning, there is nothing on television except sermons and when noon rolls around, the restaruants are full of those self righteous born againers who have spent the morning in prayer with up lifted hands yet they hit the buffet line and forget that they are suppose to be kind and giving. Do not dare try and take the last breast, chicken breast, in front of hungry Baptist preacher. His fork will pierce your skin as fast as that devils fork he spent thrity-five minutes preaching about. And the women who are lucky enough to be eating out will not let you sneak in front of them for one piece of bread, they will talk trash to you until you get to the back of the line, no matter if you are diabetic with a blood sugar of ten. They are snotty to the waitresses and leave coins for tips. They turn into these gluttons who go back for seconds and thirds and all the while they are talking about how the preacher was right about *them* gays not getting to marry. That's a sin. They also gossip and inflame their neighbors and then talk about the rights of women to chose. Do you see how important it is to consider where a person lives in relation to how they view the fundies. From one side of their mouth comes the teachings of Christ and from the other comes the breaking of the rules from the teaching of Christ. I must say, it is a war zone in this Bible belt and the evil foil of righteousness doesn't have to work too hard to make the do gooders do very bad things. So to write about the good in the Christian community is very difficult. It is almost oxymoronic to say Christian and good in the same sentence.