What made you roll your eyes today thread?

[D'Snowth]

Never had good experiences with Toshiba myself, TBH.

 

[LittleJerry92]

It actually was a Phillips one, my bad. And it actually turns out it was the tape itself (an old Mst3k tape from 27 years ago). Oh well.

Yeah, felt like ending my night by watching an episode on one of my tapes cause I also like reliving the nostalgia of the commercials from time to time.

And yeah, Toshiba sucks.

 

[fuzzygobo]

Over the weekend several churches in Sri Lanka were attacked and scores of people died. In Sri Lanka, Christians are a small fraction to the majority of Buddhists and Muslims.
But in the news, the victims weren't Christians, they were "Easter worshippers". That's what both Obama and Hillary called them.
Why can't they call them Christians? Because Christians to them, are the ones that victimize others' like Muslims, gays, etc. So they can't be victims, let alone a persecuted minority. Somehow the math doesn't work for them.
Let me simplify things. I am a Christian. I worship Jesus. I celebrate Easter.

Get it?

 

[D'Snowth]

A lot of Christians have been victimizing others, particularly here in America, which is why more and more Americans are turning away from Christianity because of the false representations that in order to be a Christian, you have to hate certain groups of people like Muslims, Jews, Blacks, the LGBT community, et al, and people want nothing to do with that.

Also, not everybody celebrates certain religious holidays for religious reasons at all - some celebrate purely for the secular aspects of them; I'm sure there are plenty of irreligious people out there who celebrate Christmas, not because it's the celebration of the birth of Christ, but for the trees, decorations, lights, exchanging gifts (and yes, I am aware that all of those are actually religious symbols, but how many people actually know that?).

 

[LittleJerry92]

See, that's the exact opposite for me.

You can't be a Christian and hate other people. The lord wouldn't want it to be that way.

 

[D'Snowth]

That's kind of my point - this is what's happening in Christianity, particularly American Christianity (and specifically, Conservative Christianity), and this is why more and more people are turning away from it these days, because they're being lead to believe that to be a Christian, you have to hate other people . . . and the thing of it is, the Christians who are presenting this false representation aren't really doing anything to correct themselves or clarify that's not the message they're trying to send . . . it's almost kind of like Channel Awesome's response to #ChangeTheChannel last year: "we regret that you feel that way, but we're right, you're wrong."

There's also some Christians out there who seem to think that you can't be certain things in order to be Christian - not just being gay or anything like that (and for the record, one of our former fellow long-timer MC old-timer is a gay Christian; and I have a lady friend who's a bisexual baptist), but like they say you can't be a liberal, or a hipster, or an artist, or a musician, or anything like that if you're going to be a Christian . . . so, what, you basically have to be Amish to be a Christian or something?

Now, I know that's a lot of generalizing, which is just as bad, and I'm not saying that all Christians (or even all conservatives, for that matter) are like this - but enough of them are for me to justify this generalization, just as they believe enough black people are thugs, or enough Hispanics are rapists and drug dealers, or enough Muslims are terrorists, or enough gay people are "evil" for them to justify their own generalizations.

Believe it or not, I've really been trying to just brush off the political landscape as of late: I know nothing's going to change until we get somebody else in the White House (and even so, so much damage has done, it's going to take forever to fix, like it did Obama to fix Bush's mess), and so much ridiculousness continues to happen day in and day out that I basically just have to shrug and dismiss it as another day in the life of a divided country . . . but I still, very much, take issue with people who keep saying things like "God elected Trump," or "Trump is God's chosen one," or "Trump respects Christian values," or "Trump is doing God's work," or "Trump is the most Godly President America ever had," or "God is very happy with the work Trump has done," or anything of that sort, because nothing could be further from the truth, and if you're telling me that God would somehow be okay with any of what's going on, then obviously we must be worshipping completely different Gods.

 

[fuzzygobo]

Well, I can't speak for all Christians, but the idea we're taught to hate Muslims Jews or gays is total bull$&/!
There are a number of Jews and blacks that come to our church, and their diversity enhances our communal worship. They are not seen as an enemy. (Hmm, I wonder if anyone has gotten around to telling the five black families in our church how much they're hated. Especially one of our elders. What a kick in the pants that will be for him!)

If people celebrate religious holidays just for secular reasons, they're missing the point.
And I feel sorry for people that think there's nothing more to Easter than a bunny, there's nothing more to Christmas than Santa Claus (St. Nicholas did have strong ties to the church, but a lot of people are still unaware of his roots or the significance behind it).
For some their knowledge of Hanukkah ends with the Mensch on the Bench.
It also disappoints me when St. Patrick's Day (to celebrate St. Patrick bringing Christianity to Ireland) for many is no more than an excuse to get drunk.
The St. Paddy's Day parade in New York has made strides allowing gays to march as well. Not too long ago that would have been unheard of.

The massacres in Sri Lanka were violent acts of hate. I would be no less outraged if it happened in a mosque or a synagogue. Evil is evil. But for people to decide "We'll kill these Christians because they have it coming".
Only God can make that call. Not man.

 

[fuzzygobo]

I would also like to meet some of those Christians who say I can't be a musician. If I can't be a musician, what am I doing up there every Sunday morning
singing in front of the congregation?
Furthermore, what was I doing up there playing jazz and blues opening up for bigger jazz and blues acts?
I played bass, my pastor and his friend who is a Byzantine Catholic priest on guitars, and one of our elders on drums.
Do you know any of those Christians who say we can't be a musician and a Christian at the same time? Can you introduce them to me?

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

My mom.

 

[LittleJerry92]

So, apparently handshakes could now be banned from the working world.

This totally falls into the manipulation of #metoo. I’m calling it.