I opened up a can of worms, and I’m not afraid to examine those worms in great detail, but it was not the subject of the earlier post. <\/p>\n
This post, you can spend as much time recounting your recollections or readings or personal experiences about how Christianity (or ANY OTHER BELIEF) sucks on ice,if you so choose, though Christianity seems to be such an easy target. Everyone seems perfectly willing to blame everything any christian did on any christian around, and while any reasoning person knows this to be mere prejudice, I’m willing to dispel ignorance where I can. <\/p>\n
Okay:<\/p>\n
Just so nobody can accuse me of proselytizing, which I am not,I will not state that Jesus Christ is god. I will not state that he is the son of god. I will not even state that he lived. I won’t make any reference to Jesus Christ except as a potentially fictional character who espoused a certain way of life. I may quote him in context to illustrate a point. I will also point out that I am not a member of any christian organization who will have me.<\/p>\n
A group of people have decided to follow the teachings of Christ. That’s not a bad thing, because the teachings of Christ are basically pretty gentle and admirable. Love people. Don’t judge. Try to be decent to your fellow man. Jesus may well have been the initial hippie. If he was, he was the only hippie to ever get it right.<\/p>\n
Whatever the case, Jesus the Initial Hippie has a bigass group of people that call themselves his followers. Commonly, these people are called Christians. With me so far?<\/p>\n
Some of those people turn out to be pretty nasty. Paul, for instance, is apparently an ass of the first order, specifically where it comes to women. He’s a good writer, and he draws out more of the meaning of the Gospels of Christ, but in many ways, many historians agree, he was an ass. Me, I wasn’t there, so I can’t judge. Not judging is a christian thing to do, I think.<\/p>\n
Anyway, there are LOTS of others. Lots of decent christians, lots of assholes calling themselves christians. Sometimes, even the decent christians do things that put them in the asshole category. Are they following the teachings of Christ when they are being assholes? no. Frankly, having read the OT and NT and tons of other shit about Christ, I am hard pressed to find a single moment where he encouraged people to be assholes, unless you count the time he kicked the moneychangers asses for them. Maybe the message there was just not to be an asshole in a house of worship. Not being an asshole is a Christian thing to do, I think.<\/p>\n
Much later on, a coordinated group of people calling themselves Christians, but acting like assholes, some of which were even in command of the major Christian institutions of the day, made a hobby out of opressing and torturing and yes, even killing people. There were bucketloads of occurrences like this, and rhey still continue to some extent today.Torturing and killing and generally oppressing people is not a Christisn thing to do, I think. I also think Jesus the Initial Hippie would disaprove. Notice how I keep saying “I think” not “I know” because what I’m saying here is opinion. My opinion. It’s my blog. <\/p>\n
Now, let’s look at labels and names:<\/p>\n
If we call a follower of Christ a Christian, someone who follows Mahomet a muslim, someone who programs computers a programmer, and someone who gardens a gardener, those are pretty accurate labels, for the most part. <\/p>\n
If we define someone as a Christian because he follows the teachings of Christ the Initial Hippie, then it follows that when they do not act in a manner consistent with christianity, they aren’t acting very “christian-y” By the same token, if a muslim eats pork, or drinks alcohol, in direct violation of the tenets of Islam, that muslim isn’t acting very muslim-y. if a programmer stops programming and instead sits with his bare feet caressing the monitor of his computer, having a conversation out loud with Ren and Stimpy dolls, doing all three voices, he’s not being very programmer-y. (Went to school with THAT guy) If a Gardener stops caring for his charges and all of a sudden takes out a chainsaw and destroys everything in sight, he’s not being very Gardener-y. <\/p>\n
The labels we apply to people are, therefore, only at their most accurate when those labels accurately describe their behavior. When you look at Fred, massaging the computer screen with his feet and holding a three-way conversation with himself, you can say “he’s a programmer” but the casual observer is no doubt going to say “He sure don’t look like it”. More accurate is to say, “When he’s not acting like a delusional schizophrenic he’s a good programmer” which is EXACTLY how people describe Fred. Likewise, when a gardener is slashing hedges, trees, etc. all over the landscape, the employer is likely to say to the police “Well, when he’s not running amok with a chainsaw, he’s an inspired gardener” . Likewise, when Torquemada was immolating jews like cordwood, people MIGHT have said, “well, when he’s not acting like a total fuckhead, he’s a good christian”. Myself, I would tend to doubt that, because I suspect Torquemada acted like a total fuckhead most of the time. And that brings us to the next concept: Quantity. If the quality of christianity depends on the closeness to which you follwo the teachings of Christ, just as important is the quantity of time you spend acting like a Christian. Christianity, therefore, like Islam or Buddhisim or Wicca, is not a binary thing, but a variable volume state of being. If I spend 50% of my time acting like a perfect christian, and 50% of my time acting like a total fucktard, only 50% of my life counts as actual christianity.<\/p>\n
The final point I’d like to make, is that while slicing people’s heads off is not the act of someone who is acting crhistian-y, it IS the action of someone who is acting Muslim-y. While people may well have sliced heads in the NAME of christianity, that does not make them christians. When people do that in the name of Islam, they ARE acting islam-y. And the argument that “christians did X”, if you still want to make it, is just pure ignorance of the nature of Christianity. Just as the argument that “muslims don’t do X”, if you’re still willing to make it, is pure ignorance of the nature of Islam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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