my issue with christians...
Now before I bury myself, I'd just like to state that I know I'm generalizing. I know there are plenty of christians who are wonderful people. There are christians who travel the world giving, and helping other people, and hardly give a second thought to thier own comfort. There are christians that reach out with love BEFORE they start spewing scripture. There are christians that are christians because they believe in love, not because they fear hell. I am not talking about these christians. I am talking about most of the christians I have had the misfortune to deal with over the course of my short life. And I don't mean to offend anyone, although I'm sure I will, I just need to rant. I need to get this thoughts down, or I'll explode.
So I watched "Saved" last night. Basically, girl grows up in a pentacostal christian community.She, like those around her, are obsessed with God, Jesus and righteousness. Confused by certain sexual themes, she gives away her virginity, thinking it's God's will and hoping to be renewed. Girl gets pregnant, and becomes withdrawn, and community goes into upheaval.
I wanted to watch this movie because I grew up in an Assembly of God church (evangelical pentacostal) which behaved very much like the community in question. Excorscisms, demons, angels, speaking in tounges, spiritual omens and miracles were accepted and - to some degree at least- expcected.
I laughed at some of the characters, recognizing them as one cariacature or another of the real people i knew in my childhood.
The movie was decent- not spectacular. It was marketed wrong. It really was more of a Teen drama...just with an interesting and slightly more meaningful twist. There was satire, for sure, but I was dissapointed that there wasn't more sardonic jabs at fundamentalism. I wanted more darkness. I wanted someone to finally point out the plaws in most evangelist approaches.
Look. For some reason, most christians (evangelists) think that spewing scripture is going to help unbelievers believe in something. Idiocy. Sheer idiocy. People can read the bible for themselves, they don't need it quoted by you every 5 seconds. And I hate it when people shout verses at me too...like that's going to change a single damn thing. I'm searching, here. You'd think I'd at very LEAST read the Bible. I definately turn way off when people start proving thier holiness by advertising thier knowledge of "god's word". Like they can presume to understand it, and apply it in most situations. Do you know how many different ways there are of interpreting single words in he bible?
I don't think the individual lines of the bible were ever meant to be important. It's the big picture that's meant to be examined. The idea of unconditional love and sleflessness is communicated when you look at the parables, and things like the gospels and individual examples of forgivness...but solitary lines prove nothing. For every meaningful, prophetic sounding quote from the bible, I can take another from the same book that sounds ill-informed and absurd. So, request for evangelists number one, DON'T SPEW SCRIPTURE AND EXPECT IT TO MEAN A SINGLE THING TO UNBELIEVERS.
Secondly, whenever christians say "Now, I'm not trying to be self-righteous" ...they're always being exaclty that. I've noticed alot of christians get into holy-contests. They sit around with wan, pious smiles and try to be more perfect than eachother. They're all trying to be more humble than the man next to them. It wants to make me puke. Look, you can't make crude jokes with all your friends one night, and then preach to me about humility and cleanliness the next.
Here's wherre I'm definately going to offend people. Not to name names, because I would not venture so say these people embody everything I bitched about aove...but. I have this one group of friends. I think they're genuinely good people, and I care about them very much. They are also, for the most part, all very christian. They're all the horniest people I know. While most of them are chaste...only barely. They fondle eachother, and grope eachother like it's a big joke...and then they turn around and talk about purity and chastity. I just don't get it. I can comment on it, because I think I was probably kind of like that a few years ago...but you know what? It's definately wrong. Everyone's just getting off on eachother, and it's all very cheap, and they're all very self-righteous about other areas of their lives. But, I guess, as long as there isn't actual penetration going on, you can be a lascivious as you want and it isn't a sin....right?
And that's truly pretty tame. That's just an ilustration. I've known people to emotionally abuse children, and cheat on spouses, and lie, and steal....and it's ok, because they've got different, prettier names for thier sins, but since they sit in churhc with a smile on thier face every sunday...and because they pray loudly, and proclaim thier strong faith in God every chance they get, they're deffinately going to heaven. And doubter that I am, I'm doomed to a fiery eternity in hell.
I've seen people hurt eachother maliciously, and demand blood in the name of Christ, and refuse to be parted with a single dime for any cause other than thier own....but since I won't be false. Since I admit that I cannot be sure of what's obviously way over my head, since I cannot be arrogant when it comes to my knowledge of absolute truth...I'm the forsaken one.
And then thirdly. There are people who are so ridiculoudly ignorant about thier faith, but people look at them with smiles anyway because they pretend they have it. True story:
there's a girl who works is my offfice. She's 27. I should say "woman"....but she's really not. She's definately a girl. She's a republican, but we were talking about who should be in office next election. here's our conversation:
me: I would like to see Hillary in office someday, I think
Her: Oh, no, I would NEVER vote for a woman.
me: Even if she's a republican
Her: Never.
Me: Really? Howcome?
Her: Because that's not the way it's supposed to be, like, in the bible. Men can only be presidents.
I wanted to strangle her. I wanted to say "yeah, well, you're also not supposed to have sex with multiple people, so says the bible, but we know you're not paying attention to that, so..." which she isn't. She was telling about this guy she recenlty screwed the day before...
I just don't understand.
Kind of makes you wonder though. Christianity really confuses me And I'll say it again, there are plenty of christians that I truly respect. There are good people. There are good people everywhere. But christianity today seems so flawed. So ingorant...but I guess that makes sense. It's ALOT easier to believe something if you never really think about it. Trust me, I would know.
So I watched "Saved" last night. Basically, girl grows up in a pentacostal christian community.She, like those around her, are obsessed with God, Jesus and righteousness. Confused by certain sexual themes, she gives away her virginity, thinking it's God's will and hoping to be renewed. Girl gets pregnant, and becomes withdrawn, and community goes into upheaval.
I wanted to watch this movie because I grew up in an Assembly of God church (evangelical pentacostal) which behaved very much like the community in question. Excorscisms, demons, angels, speaking in tounges, spiritual omens and miracles were accepted and - to some degree at least- expcected.
I laughed at some of the characters, recognizing them as one cariacature or another of the real people i knew in my childhood.
The movie was decent- not spectacular. It was marketed wrong. It really was more of a Teen drama...just with an interesting and slightly more meaningful twist. There was satire, for sure, but I was dissapointed that there wasn't more sardonic jabs at fundamentalism. I wanted more darkness. I wanted someone to finally point out the plaws in most evangelist approaches.
Look. For some reason, most christians (evangelists) think that spewing scripture is going to help unbelievers believe in something. Idiocy. Sheer idiocy. People can read the bible for themselves, they don't need it quoted by you every 5 seconds. And I hate it when people shout verses at me too...like that's going to change a single damn thing. I'm searching, here. You'd think I'd at very LEAST read the Bible. I definately turn way off when people start proving thier holiness by advertising thier knowledge of "god's word". Like they can presume to understand it, and apply it in most situations. Do you know how many different ways there are of interpreting single words in he bible?
I don't think the individual lines of the bible were ever meant to be important. It's the big picture that's meant to be examined. The idea of unconditional love and sleflessness is communicated when you look at the parables, and things like the gospels and individual examples of forgivness...but solitary lines prove nothing. For every meaningful, prophetic sounding quote from the bible, I can take another from the same book that sounds ill-informed and absurd. So, request for evangelists number one, DON'T SPEW SCRIPTURE AND EXPECT IT TO MEAN A SINGLE THING TO UNBELIEVERS.
Secondly, whenever christians say "Now, I'm not trying to be self-righteous" ...they're always being exaclty that. I've noticed alot of christians get into holy-contests. They sit around with wan, pious smiles and try to be more perfect than eachother. They're all trying to be more humble than the man next to them. It wants to make me puke. Look, you can't make crude jokes with all your friends one night, and then preach to me about humility and cleanliness the next.
Here's wherre I'm definately going to offend people. Not to name names, because I would not venture so say these people embody everything I bitched about aove...but. I have this one group of friends. I think they're genuinely good people, and I care about them very much. They are also, for the most part, all very christian. They're all the horniest people I know. While most of them are chaste...only barely. They fondle eachother, and grope eachother like it's a big joke...and then they turn around and talk about purity and chastity. I just don't get it. I can comment on it, because I think I was probably kind of like that a few years ago...but you know what? It's definately wrong. Everyone's just getting off on eachother, and it's all very cheap, and they're all very self-righteous about other areas of their lives. But, I guess, as long as there isn't actual penetration going on, you can be a lascivious as you want and it isn't a sin....right?
And that's truly pretty tame. That's just an ilustration. I've known people to emotionally abuse children, and cheat on spouses, and lie, and steal....and it's ok, because they've got different, prettier names for thier sins, but since they sit in churhc with a smile on thier face every sunday...and because they pray loudly, and proclaim thier strong faith in God every chance they get, they're deffinately going to heaven. And doubter that I am, I'm doomed to a fiery eternity in hell.
I've seen people hurt eachother maliciously, and demand blood in the name of Christ, and refuse to be parted with a single dime for any cause other than thier own....but since I won't be false. Since I admit that I cannot be sure of what's obviously way over my head, since I cannot be arrogant when it comes to my knowledge of absolute truth...I'm the forsaken one.
And then thirdly. There are people who are so ridiculoudly ignorant about thier faith, but people look at them with smiles anyway because they pretend they have it. True story:
there's a girl who works is my offfice. She's 27. I should say "woman"....but she's really not. She's definately a girl. She's a republican, but we were talking about who should be in office next election. here's our conversation:
me: I would like to see Hillary in office someday, I think
Her: Oh, no, I would NEVER vote for a woman.
me: Even if she's a republican
Her: Never.
Me: Really? Howcome?
Her: Because that's not the way it's supposed to be, like, in the bible. Men can only be presidents.
I wanted to strangle her. I wanted to say "yeah, well, you're also not supposed to have sex with multiple people, so says the bible, but we know you're not paying attention to that, so..." which she isn't. She was telling about this guy she recenlty screwed the day before...
I just don't understand.
Kind of makes you wonder though. Christianity really confuses me And I'll say it again, there are plenty of christians that I truly respect. There are good people. There are good people everywhere. But christianity today seems so flawed. So ingorant...but I guess that makes sense. It's ALOT easier to believe something if you never really think about it. Trust me, I would know.