The Bible and Love and Christians

frogboy4

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It took me a while...(forgive the length)

When I was in school (a religion-based, private school in Houston) bullying came from a different sort of place. One of moral justification that resulted in shunning of others who believed or lived outside of the Christian majority. I owe much of my thick skin, patience and coping abilities to this time in my life, but not everybody reacts the same to adversity. Some kids are really affected quite differently and don’t at least have the structure of a private institution to protect them from bodily harm.

My bullies were mainly in grade and middle school, but many peers were persecuted in high school too. I did a bit of the goth-boy thing to get people to leave me alone. Hehe. Worked like a charm! One thing all of these bullies had in common was the primary source for their condemnation – "moral leaders" like James Dobson and Pat Robertson who made a point to reach out to young people through television and literature to spread more poison than understanding or acceptance. I firmly believe that any public broadcast or book from these particular leaders should contain warning labels for younger viewers! I don’t think anyone under the age of consent should be exposed to their toxic view of religion. But not all Christians are like them. In fact, I’ve found that most of them are not, but they just aren’t nearly as vocal. That’s precisely what makes your video so valuable! Thanks for it.

My views extend beyond a "live and let live" mentality. I think we should find the similarities in others and also celebrate the differences! There are many who think that we can be only of one belief or the other, but we really should be more of a blending of ideas...or at least a mutual acceptance of the right to thrive under different beliefs. I don’t think we should try to change others to our way of thinking or dictate how they should live their lives. Many friends and family members are Christians – I am not, nor will I ever be. I understand their faith and the architecture of their beliefs, but I personally disagree with them and that cannot be resolved. I was raised in it, had an interesting journey exploring it for decades and finally came to my own conclusions. Case closed. But that’s okay! I certainly don’t ban those folk from my life or prevent them from sharing or carrying out their traditions and thriving in their own lives. I wish the Christian majority in this country adopted that same practice toward me and my gay friends.

There’s an alarming, sweeping notion of Christian Supremacy in America. Extremists want to prevent equal treatment and even strip others of rights if they don’t fit an arbitrary idea of the Christian American family. There's a "my way or the highway" mentality out there that if Christan principles aren't followed that this country will perish. Every natural disaster is transformed into a warning sign of our wicked ways and any gay rights achieved translate into some absurd illustration of being able to marry the family pet! However, if Kermit proposed to me I'd have a hard time saying no. But who wouldn't? :smile:

Personally, I like seeing Christmas trees and over-sized candy canes in the town square. Most of my gay peers do too! In fact, who do you think designs a lot of that stuff? Too many conservatives have been convinced that the secular extremist point of view reflects a majority. This Texan-turned-San Franciscan will tell you that's not so! As a child of adoption, I also think that kids need homes regardless of what match-up comprises the family dynamic. Differences are never easy, but I think we can have it all in this country if want it and learn to share! Maybe more adults should fit in some viewings of Sesame Street!

Things do get better after high school. It becomes easier to pick and choose our peer groups, but I favor an eclectic assortment! What kind of person wants to be surrounded by like-minded sycophants? I love having friends who will openly disagree with me. On a monthly basis I talk to gays, straights, transgenders, whites, blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and Muppet Enthusiasts! I don’t think my life would be as full if not for all of these fantastically different people and I wouldn’t want to change one thing about their personalities or beliefs.

I was raised under the notion that being a cafeteria Christian was a bad thing. Maybe so for that theology, but I'm a cafeteria human being! I expose myself to all different types of things, learn from them, accept the parts I like and leave the rest for others. It makes for a much richer life experience! We should all be able to get along with our differences intact, but there are far too many religious leaders who preach that is a dangerous thing! Too many young people dealing with their issues are taught they are immoral or wrong and they learn self-loathing instead of exploring who they are and learn self-acceptance of however they might turn out to be!

The world isn’t perfect, but the perspective on it gets much better after high school. By the time many of these current gay students graduate college they’ll likely be able to marry who they choose and will enjoy more equality under the law than we do now. It is getting better.
 

Drtooth

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Here's what I tend to think... there are extremists on any side of anything, and everyone needs to distance themselves from them and marginalize them and mirror how crazy and out of touch they really are. be they religious or non-religious. This whole religion turf war thing is so Crusader era. You have "Christians" (and a bunch of other religions, actually) saying "Oh yeah, live by the 10 commandments, unless it comes to an obscure passage that can nullify all of them... then we pick and choose." and "atheists" who say "You're the reason for all the world's problems, so let's be as bad as you!" There is NO way a rational, mature conversation about religious beliefs CAN'T be accomplished by scholars. I don't see why there aren't more philosophic religious followers, that is, someone who doesn't believe in a creator God (or at least what the common person thinks of God) but get the philosophy of the prophets from one or all religions. In other words, having a faith or faith based ideals without following a specific religion. Not so much disavowing of them, but respecting them and what they stand for.

As for that... ehhem thing? Dude... we can't even eat SHRIMP! Everything is a sin. I agree with the Simpsons, "Did you even sit down to read this thing? Technically you can't even go to the bathroom."

As for bullying, people will bully anyone for anything. Sometimes they just need an excuse. Seems that in your case, Frogboy, they wanted to lord over their faith in false prophets (as someone who was raised Christian with a father who eventually became a pastor) I have nothing but disdain for Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell types. Two reasons... they seem to enforce certain "beliefs" that put people down instead of lift them up, the opposite of what faith is supposed to do, mind you. and reason two, well, if my dad spoke smack about gays and used that to subscribe to a specific political group, we'd be living the high life. :mad: I can't call myself a good Christian, but the fact that someone can make a fortune telling people what to believe and how to behave instead of just peacefully speaking the words of their religion... well, that makes me sick to my stomach. Any religion will tell you it is your duty to help others and live in peace with them square one.

As for the bullies themselves... Dang, I'd LOVE to believe that it gets better, but Bullies never grow up and they never change. You'd like to think they'd end up like Biff Tannen at the end of BTTF 1, but sometimes they wind up as Biff Tannen midway through BTTF2. Sometimes the bully is you're boss, sometimes it's a co-worker. It doesn't, unfortunately, leave the playground,... it just manifests in different ways. And that behavior tends to spread like a virus, leading to people watching Reality shows to make fun of everyone on it for at least being worse off then them. And even if you're lucky enough to wind up in a supportive environment, a lot of the time, the damage is done. You might wind up losing a LOT of opportunities due to mistrust. I know I did. I just couldn't bring myself to try to make friends in college from being burned a hundred times, a trillion times shy. And that cost me. Plenty. Some people just deal with it better than others, I suppose...
 

RedPiggy

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And even if you're lucky enough to wind up in a supportive environment, a lot of the time, the damage is done. You might wind up losing a LOT of opportunities due to mistrust. I know I did. I just couldn't bring myself to try to make friends in college from being burned a hundred times, a trillion times shy. And that cost me. Plenty. Some people just deal with it better than others, I suppose...
I'm rather similar. Even if I found Mr. Right ... my standards of behavior are so high now (to weed out what I've seen is the usual theme in my family tree) I'd probably never get someone. There is a certain level of non-physical intimacy I crave and it seems like no one is really interested. I'm Christian (Progressive). While that category isn't uniform, I have something similar to the "just use the philosophy" idea you brought up.
 

lotusoftheleaf

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I really can't stand how some people like to make God out to be hateful and demanding that we all conform to what we humans consider "perfect." God isn't a stuck up girl in high school who judges your worth as a person based what you look like, after all. The God I believe in loves everyone. If we are all made in His image then we are all perfect the way we are, just as He is. Some of the nicest people I've known had a different sexual preference than my own, and I believe people should be able to marry whoever they love. If heterosexual celebrities can get married and divorced five times in a month, why can't it be acceptable for two homosexual individuals to get married? Which one is really making a mockery of the institution?
 

RedPiggy

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Well, the thing with the bible is, if you study the history behind the book in question, you come to realize that usually the Antagonistic God is more or less the product of someone who is extremely bitter about something, be it war or the fact no one is listening to them or something like that. God's punishment of the "wicked" is simply far too arbitrary in the bible for God to be truly hateful. Like depictions of (to borrow from Dinosaurs) "a place Not So Nice", God is sometimes a puppet of the author with an axe to grind. Moabites steal your cows? Look! Here's a story about how they're related to some desperate girls who "manipulate" (so to speak) their own father! Ain't that a hoot? Don't like the fact the Hebrews liked getting paid for all their construction work (the big projects were built by paid laborers, not slaves)? Say they were all evil and they should've been listening to your ideas about starving in the wilderness for the principle of the thing. Whether it's the OT or the NT, if you're willing to avoid idealizing the texts, it's clear when it reads more like a rant than an objective view of history.
 

CensoredAlso

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God isn't a stuck up girl in high school who judges your worth as a person based what you look like, after all....If we are all made in His image then we are all perfect the way we are, just as He is.
Amen to that! :smile: We say we are made in the image of God, but I think a lot of people try to make God over into their image. ; )
 

D'Snowth

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No offense TheMonsterAteMe, but this really is a subject that usually causes un-necessary flames and disputes among members who get involved in the discussion.

I speak from experience on both sides of the fence, from being the one persecuted by other members who spouted "God is a fairytale" propaganda, to having to step in as a moderator at another forum to get other members to stop harassing another member for the same reason.

I'm just saying...
 

frogboy4

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No offense TheMonsterAteMe, but this really is a subject that usually causes un-necessary flames and disputes among members who get involved in the discussion.

I speak from experience on both sides of the fence, from being the one persecuted by other members who spouted "God is a fairytale" propaganda, to having to step in as a moderator at another forum to get other members to stop harassing another member for the same reason.

I'm just saying...
Nobody's landed. A preemptive strike is unnecessary. There's a balance to be maintained and I feel the maturity of this thread so far bears witness to that.

This thread has been up for over a week and it hasn't caused un-necessary flames. I trust your concern is genuine and not an attempt to close a conversation because the subject matter makes you uncomfortable. Members can choose to skip any thread they don't like.

I had a wonderful time beautifying this place several years back, but I would have no trouble leaving Muppet Central for good if the moderators cherry picked this thread for censorship while other Bible threads still remain. Sharing can be a great thing and this thread has demonstrated that very thing! :flirt:
 

Drtooth

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I really can't stand how some people like to make God out to be hateful and demanding that we all conform to what we humans consider "perfect." God isn't a stuck up girl in high school who judges your worth as a person based what you look like, after all. The God I believe in loves everyone. If we are all made in His image then we are all perfect the way we are, just as He is. Some of the nicest people I've known had a different sexual preference than my own, and I believe people should be able to marry whoever they love. If heterosexual celebrities can get married and divorced five times in a month, why can't it be acceptable for two homosexual individuals to get married? Which one is really making a mockery of the institution?
Someone BESIDES Peter Griffin once said that homosexuals should have the right to be married so they can be as miserable as the rest of us. Truer words were never spoken.

Now, not trying to step on any toes, but marriage is a human ritualistic ceremony. It's all about symbolism that NO ONE wants to bother with anymore. All the time you see quicky marriages that end up in despair and people marrying for all the wrong reasons, all ending in divorce... really, we want to think of divorce as this painful thing that's a last ditch effort... and it's only to be used in emergencies like if things just can't be worked out or worse... if one of the two is any matter of abusive. It usually isn't. heck, my cousin was shotgun married over the summer (and I have so many bad feelings about it, and I don't want to fill anything else with even MORE unnecessary emotional baggage)... that's probably not going to end well.

There's just so much about marriage that bugs me... some people just can't be in omitted relationships. Some people just can't FIND themselves in one, even if they try.

As for the "god is a fairy tale" stuff... this is how I tend to think... you can either accept the belief in one or you can question it. As long as you can respect why the other party sees that way. There is NO enlightenment in refusing the other side, but there is in a very well crafted respectful discussion. Truth is, we really DON'T know how we got here, we don't know why we're here, and we may never ever find out. We just have various theories, some that support a creator god, some that don't. There are even some in the middle who believe in a higher power, but they don't feel it created everything at least in that way.

The problem lies in with bitterness. Both sides of anything can't stand each other because of the loud vocal minorities on both sides... it's like this in religion, politics...everything. The Athiest movement came out of people who were bitter at bitter "religious" (note quotations) nuts... same way the "Moral" Majority came out of Hippies in the 70's. One extremist group breads another. And the only thing that bitterness gets is suffering and profits from shifty types that profit off the misery of others. The people in the middle (especially the Moe Syzlak types like myself who want no part of anything) are the ones that get hurt the most since we're willing to listen to the other side IF they can handle a persuasive, mild mannered, and respectful discussion of their views. Too bad we never get them, and too bad when we do, they're easilly ignored.
 
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