Matt Walsh:
A lot of people have sent me this video made by BuzzFeed, the same folks who produced such film classics as “What Bros Do Before a Date,” “Weird Things Couples Do When They Lose Their Phone” (apparently they look for it — so weird!) and “What It’s Like To Be A Hairy Girl.” It’s about as insightful and deep as you’d expect, considering the source and the title: “I’m a Christian, But I’m Not.”
The viral clip, which spawned thousands of shares and a trending hashtag, features six millennials describing their makeshift Build-A-Bear faith. It starts with each person assuring us they’re “Christian” but they don’t think they’re “perfect,” and they’re certainly not “homophobic,” “unaccepting,” “uneducated,” “judgmental,” “ignorant” or “conservative.” If lumping “conservative” in with “uneducated, homophobic and ignorant” didn’t get the passive-aggressive message across aggressively enough, the next part makes it painfully clear: one by one, the carefully selected collection of manicured trendies informs us that although they are allegedly Christian, they’re also ”accepting,” “queer,” “gay,” “feminist,” “feminist,” and in case you missed it, “feminist.”
The video falters badly here, in the first 60 seconds, for the reasons:
1) To say “I’m a Christian, but I know I’m not perfect” is nonsensical. There should be no “but” in that sentence. There are definitely some haughty Christians out there (see: the ones in this video), but a Christian, in principle, is by definition a person who knows they are part of a fallen race and can only be redeemed through the blood of Christ Jesus. The Christian sins like all people sin, and it’s this recognition of his own sin that causes him to cry out, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” (Romans 7:21). By his Christian faith he knows that it is “God who delivers him through Jesus Christ, our Lord.” The correct way to say it then is, “I am Christian, because I know I am not perfect.”
2) There’s nothing more self-righteous than making a big show about your supposed lack of self-righteousness. It’s true that Christians need not be — and in fact usually are not — “ignorant,” “uneducated” or “homophobic.” But when you say, “I’m a Christian but I’m not _____”, you are passively accusing most other Christians of being whatever you said you aren’t. Therefore, in the process of pointing out how you’re not “on a pedestal,” you have placed yourself on a pedestal. In saying, “I’m not judgmental, unlike all those guys over there,” you are being judgmental. In showing off your humility, you are showing off your staggering arrogance.
As Christians, our goal is not to avoid being like the big bad “other Christians,” but to strive to be like Christ Himself. This is one of the advantages to having an Incarnate God. He went around acting and speaking and teaching and generally functioning in our realm, thereby giving us a model to follow. This is the model of a loving and merciful man, and also a man of perfect virtue who fought against the forces of evil, condemned sin, defended his Father in Heaven with sometimes violent force, spoke truth, and eventually laid down His life for those He loved (which would be all of us).
Only Jesus is Lord, so we of course cannot emulate everything He did, and we probably shouldn’t try (like walking on water, etc.). And it’s important to remember that Christ came to open up the gates of heaven and deliver us from evil, not merely to give instructions and set a nice example. He is the lamb of God, not a character on Full House. Still, His example and His instructions aren’t irrelevant to our salvation, nor are they optional. Throughout the New Testament, Jesus tells his disciples over and over again that they must follow Him. ”Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). Because He is not physically here to be followed in the directional, point A to point B sense of the word, we understand that “following” means, very simply, doing what He did and what He said.
This is what it means to believe in Christ. Not just to believe that He existed, but to believe that Christ is Truth itself, and that everything He said and did was totally and absolutely and irreversibly true forever and always. Many Christians today — not only the ones in the video, but millions alongside them — seem to think we can rightly claim to have “faith” in Jesus or a “relationship” with Him while still categorically denying much of His Word. This is a ridiculous proposition. We can’t declare, in one breath, that Christ is Lord, and in the next suggest that maybe God got it wrong on this or that point. Well, we can make that declaration, but we expose our belief as fraudulent and self-serving. We worship a God we either invented in our heads, which is a false idol, or a God who is fallible, which is a false idol. I’m not saying we can’t be Christians if we fall short of His teachings — I do that all the time, much to my shame — just that we can’t be Christians if we fundamentally deny His teachings.
We might pretend that so long as we believe He is Lord, the rest is more of a buffet that we can digest or reject at our leisure, but on what basis do we believe that He is the Son of God if we don’t believe anything else He said, either vocally or through the authors who wrote the various books of the Bible? How can we believe a guy when he claims to be God Himself, but not when we claims to know a thing or two about the way we’re supposed to conduct ourselves?
Christ: You should do things this way.
Buffet Christians: LIAR!
Christ: I’m the Son of the Living God and I will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.
Buffet Christians: OK, well that part I’ll buy.
There appears to be a massive disconnect here, wouldn’t you say?
So, for example, we have to make up our minds when we’re confronted with passages like this: “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Matthew 19:4). The Incarnate God defines marriage as between a man and a woman. He is right or wrong here, and if He’s wrong then He is not God, and we all should become atheist or find another religion entirely (I hear Buddhism is nice this time of year). But if He is right, then we are required as Christians to believe this view and proclaim it from the mountaintops. If we fail in that task, we fail as Christians. This brings us to item 3.
3) The video advertises sin. It’s true, again, that Christians can be gay, as in they can experience same-sex attractions. But they cannot suggest that it’s all right to act upon those sinful temptations, let alone define themselves by them. It’s not stated explicitly, but it seems pretty clear that the homosexuals in the video aren’t advocating that same-sex attracted people reject their urges and live a celibate life. Instead, like so many in the West, they appear to be saying, “I amactively gay – and that’s OK!” No, it isn’t OK, and when you say things like that, the homosexuality is now a secondary concern to the blatant apostasy.
The great danger in our society is not that it is populated by sinful people, but that it’s populated by heretics who campaign to move their favorite sins from the “bad” column to the “good,” as if God is some indecisive bureaucrat whose moral laws can be amended or abolished by popular vote.
In Romans 13:11-14 the Apostle warns Christians not to plan ahead to accomplish the works of the flesh (sins) but rather to conduct ourselves properly, as people who live in the light of day—no orgies or drunkenness, no immorality or indecency, no fighting or jealousy.
Sadly the Christians making those videos are planning ahead for sinning, hoping (I suppose, even taught) that God will forgive them later.
But a ”church” that gives them such weak teachings?
Jesus weighed in on that:
Luke 17:1-3 tells influential Christian leaders it would be better to simply put a millstone around their own necks and throw themselves into the sea than to face God’s wrath for leading a weaker Christian into sin by teaching that it is OK.
Also repeated at Mark 9:42 as well as Matthew 18:6.
An Apostle also weighed in on this same problem:
2 Timothy 4: 3 The time will come when people will not listen to sound doctrine, but will follow their own desires and will collect for themselves more and more teachers who will tell them what they are itching to hear.
Well written, Curt. The ‘cafeteria catholic’ phenomenon is well known. I tried to make the point you wrote about here, but you did it much more effectively. The idea that God – who required His own Son as a sacrifice to erase the sins of mankind – would be amenable to determination of religious beliefs based on fungible plebescite that alters eternal moral truths based on fashion trends is ridiculous. If one believes in Christian theology, one must remember that the all-merciful God is also all-just. One cannot follow Christ while denying what Christ taught in order to justify acts that are implicitly against Christ’s teachings.
@Pete: Can’t take credit for this Pete. This is a Most Wanted article from Matt Walsh. You can see the whole article when you lick the Read More link.
Why do I suspect that if the topic were to shift from sexuality to capitalism, Matt Walsh would suddenly find any number of ways to reconcile the pursuit and accumulation of wealth with “true” Christianity, despite Jesus’s repeated admonitions about the spiritual perils of materialism?
It is the height of audacity for someone to tell anyone else that he or she isn’t what they say they are. What you are – who you are – is something YOU know better than anyone else. If you say that you believe something, nobody can hold a metering device up to you and check the dial to see if you really BELIEVE what you say you believe. Neither can they measure how true or accurate your beliefs are. That’s why beliefs are “beliefs” and not “science.”
The Jews were the first folk to record the idea that their beliefs were true and that other people’s beliefs were false, and thus began the religious strife that has plagued the planet ever since. Religions have been at each others’ throats continuously in spite of the painfully obvious fact that they can’t all be right. Either all but one of them are wrong, or they are ALL wrong. Yet each and every one of them scream at each other with mutually contradictory dogma in a futile attempt to change that which cannot be changed save my genuine miracle. And miracles are awfully hard to come by.
Matt Walsh’s tired arguments are built on bushels of circular reasoning and little else. So he joins the rabble accusing others of untrue beliefs… BELIEFS!… and attempts to prove the point as if he’s suddenly working a science experiment. You don’t get to do that with beliefs. You HAVE to take them as they are. You HAVE to take people’s word when they tell you what they believe. Here, take this tape measure and find out how long my Christianity can be stretched. Then weigh it at room temperature and then chill it in an ice bath and see if it weighs any less when you dry it off. What did you discover? That scientifically speaking, beliefs are nonsense. You can’t measure a blessed thing about them, and any effort to systematically classify them is utter nonsense. Evidently, Matt doesn’t get enough homework to keep his mind gainfully occupied.
@Greg:
Having wealth is not evil. It is LOVE of wealth and a lack of PERSONAL charity that the Bible describes as “the root of all evil”. Opposing some government bureaucrat who wants to take your money to buy the votes of the selfish and the uneducated for their personal political gain is not evil.
@George Wells:
George, just because I say, “I am Napoleon,” no matter how fervently I may believe it, does not make me Napoleon.
Christian doctrine on matters of faith and morals is what it is. Either one accepts that, or one doesn’t. A person cannot be catholc – as catholcism defines itself – while denying the doctrine of Transubstantiation. Arguing over whether one should eat meat on Friday and still be able to call oneself Catholic is an entirely different matter.
As to your point regarding the supremacy of one religious set of beliefs over another, that particular theological discussion is obviously biased by one’s personal beliefs. There are plenty of Protestants who will tell me I am going to hell for being an “idol worshipping catholic”, but we aren’t bombing each others’ churches, driving bomb-laden vehicles into each others’ communities, nor beheading each other, nor murdering our daughters for marrying someone outside of their father’s denominations.
The anti-Christian relativism that tries to equate the bloodthirsty nature of islam with Judaism, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism or Taoism belies both the antipathy of such an individual to any system of religious belief that imposes morality upon them, as well as a willfull ignorance of history.
People tend to pursue what they love the most. Perhaps I misunderstand, but capitalism seems to be about the money itself. For the biggest players, money seems to be both the means and the end, and the generally recognized measure of now successful a capitalist is.
This is just an observation. I’m not saying either capitalism or money are intrinsically evil. I don’t believe either to be intrinsically evil. The desire for wealth can certainly lead a person away from kindly behavior, however. And we’re all very capable, when it comes to rationalization.
I don’t think it’s wise to play a game of Who’s the better Christian. I don’t think being Christian is an assurance of anything, so maybe I no longer meet the definition. I figure people are either trying to be better human beings or they’re not. Basically, they’re on one of two paths, whatever they call themselves. They consciously try to be kind, or they don’t.
Stop there and you’d have been on to it.
When we were newly married we heard about a printer who’d had a stoke and was selling all the parts for three presses….in pieces, in boxes.
The idea of putting them together was a challenge but the goal was to use them in our personal expression of our 1st Amendment rights!
Only later did we start taking jobs.
Much later the business branched out into film (videos, back then) and later even adverts for big businesses.
But we always had a soft spot for the religious tracts, the political manifestos and such.
Pre-internet we were the place to come!
PS, as a side note, when hubby (who retired a few years after I did) sold, the place was worth millions.
He kept the doors open a few more years than he’d intended to because Obama’s ”recovery” made it almost impossible for his workers to find other good-paying work.
My dad was raised to blacksmith.
He could shod horses, and did so when I was young.
He always loved working with metal.
He got a degree in metallurgy way back in the 1940’s.
He loved making one-a-kind things.
Thus he eventually got a reputation as the guy to go to for custom gas tanks for race cars.
But he also did safety guards for dangerous machinery, like those first Zip Code machines.
I recall he also made quite a few metal crosses for local churches in the So Cal area.
His business was worth quite a bit of money when he died in 1988.
He did what he loved every step.
He turned down boring or repetitive jobs because he could.
Well, I guess that I am wealthy.
I didn’t accumulate my wealth because I love money.
Money is just a tool.
I did it because I love the freedom and abilities that having money gives me.
The freedom to retire young, to pretty much do as I please.
The ability to help those that I love or just care about, or even merely respect.
Yeah, having money is a good thing, despite the people who claim that it’s bad and I should rid myself of it by giving it to them.
@Pete #7:
That sure sounds like the Northern Ireland of my youth. Was that your inspiration? If so, why did you disclaim it?
I refuse to accept the premise that anyone’s beliefs are the proper subject of inquiry or challenge. I’d call that Ecclesiastic Fascism. A popular pastime of Republicans, I understand. “He’s a RINO!” What IS it with you and labels, anyway? Does “Judge not, lest ye be judged” mean NOTHING to you?
History is chock-a-block full of cases where the adherents of one religion attempted to impose their morality upon the adherents of another. Yes, I feel antipathy toward such aggression. How quaint that you have a convenient “anti-Christian relativism” label for that too.
Yes.
Before this.
That’s the Belfast Peace Wall.
Your ”coexist” philosophy won’t work.
Walls work.
It does.
But, for walls to work, people need to use their JUDGEMENT in realizing some people hold to views that are supremacist toward other people.
Most religions do this, although the most peaceful of those religions (see Hindusim or Quakerism as examples) are tailor-made victims who also need the walls for THAT reason.
You want others to throw out their own good judgement in favor of your silly coexist one.
Other people have better sense.
@Nanny G #12:
“You want others to throw out their own good judgement in favor of your silly coexist one.”
Ummm… I don’t HAVE a “coexist” philosophy. I believe in the survival of the fittest. Did you miss that?
I think any country has a perfect right to build whatever wall they want and to completely shut their borders to aliens and citizens alike if they wish to. I’ve even suggested making illegal immigration punishable by death. Miss that too?
What TRUMP said about “making Mexico PAY for it” was what I mocked. That ain’t going to happen, and you know it. Trump was just blowing smoke up your arse, and like everyone else, you liked the feel of it. And in the afterglow, you STILL liked it! It would seem that the biggest faction of the GOP is just a bunch of entertainment whores addicted to Trump’s cartoon personality. It’s not something I’d be proud of.
@Greg:
That is the essence of what the moral relativists want you to believe about Christ and His teachings. The architecture of one’s moral belief system will not last long should it be built on a foundation of the shifting sands of culturopolitical popularity.
It is so much easier to manipulate the mob if there is no inherent moral fiber holding a society together. Eternal Truth is not some “Malleable Fashion-of-the-day”. Eternal Truth does not wield the armored fist of government to force belief via threats of imprisonment, court-ordered fines, or the use of social media to bring death threats against those with the audacity to publicly oppose groupthink. Eternal Truth does not riot, burn down buildings and loot businesses. Eternal Truth simply says, “Here I am. It is your choice to accept me, or to deny what is in front of you. Choose wisely, because the consequences of your decision are all on you, pal….”
The fact that leftists demand unwavering submission to their tempestuous SJW worldview of the moment (just like islam does) should – to any honest seeker of truth, wisdom and simple accuracy – make it clear those demanding lock-step obedience aren’t really that sure of their position, because they cannot tolerate a differing opinion.
I concur with the author of the post describing money as a tool. As with any tool, improper use or fetishistic obsession with the tool leads to problems of varying magnitude.
@George Wells:
Yeah…the “Judge not lest thou be judged” taken out of context Biblical quote…to which the simplest answer is to point out the Biblical reference of Christ stating that even Satan can quote Scripture – taken out of context for the purpose of deception. Following the misapplication of your “Judge not…” post, then Christians cannot have courts of law, nor ever hold anyone responsible for any crime no matter how heinous.
What is the history – the real CONTEXT – of the Northern Ireland problem, George? Are you really so naive as to think that it is really the Catholic vs Protestant clash portrayed in the media, rather than a centuries-long political/cultural fight over Irish sovereignty that both sides have misused religious belief to justify the violence of their political fight? Come on, George.
Frankly, I don’t really care what anyone else’s religious beliefs are – until the point where that religious belief demands that I be required to become a victim to their practices. The tired leftist scam of excusing current (and past) muslim barbarism by bringing up the Crusades (incidentally a RESPONSE to invasion by muslims) or the burning of witches in medieval times is just the typical leftist use of moral relativism to attack Christianity, because the leftist cannot tolerate Christian doctrine that imposes moral rules unacceptable to the leftist. Rather than simply decide not to participate in the Christian belief system, the leftist demands that NO ONE ELSE be allowed to have beliefs that would make the leftist uncomfortable. Yet in gobsmacking irony, the leftist screams that everyone else is a fascist.
Islam demands that all non-muslims be subservient to them, and either pay the jizyah or be killed. Islamic doctrine demands that muslims use lies (taqqiyah) to gain advantage over non-muslims until the muslims are strong enough to subjugate the non-muslims. Islam clearly defines women as less than men, making them the property of men. Don’t give me the ridiculous leftist muslim apologetics – I’ve read their damnable quran, and seen first hand the results of islamic culture. If islam is so damned superior to Western (Christian) culture, then tell me why we have hundreds of thousands of muslims invading Europe, rather than staying in their islamic-controlled nations?
Yet the leftist, from the protection of the majority Christian nation, will insult Christian teachings and those who choose to follow such beliefs. Leftists will shriek about alleged harm towards those afflicted with homosexual urges by Christians who simply refuse to participate in a ceremony that violates the Christian’s religious beliefs, while silently staring at their feet as islamic nations hang homosexuals from cranes, or throw them off high-rise buildings.
@Pete #14:
How do you reconcile the fact that not everyone BELIEVES in “Eternal Truth”?
Either you chuck your secular form of government and establish a one-religion theocracy (Iran, at best) or you give your citizens the right to believe whatever they want to believe. So far, we’ve stayed with the latter option. And IN this option, one group of people don’t get to force their beliefs on any other group. No “Eternal Truth,” no “Absolute Standard of Behavior” that applies to everybody. Only the Constitution – not the Bible, not the Koran.
@Pete #15:
I seem to recall that Christianity took the same tact with women, and that some vestiges of that perspective survive today.. What’s your point?
Gee, I sincerely hope not!
Who is making THAT argument????
Well, Pete, you’ve pretty much sown up the fact that I’m not a “leftist.”
I have stated time and again that I believe that any… ANY society has a sovereign right to exterminate homosexuals from its population. That includes Muslim countries, and it includes the USA. The USA chooses not to do that, a choice that I think is consistent with the values expressed in OUR Constitution. But the American people have a right to change that, and the means to do so are built into our system of government. They COULD exterminate gays if they chose to. I’m glad that they don’t, but they have that right.
Ummm… is THAT a “leftist” perspective?
@George Wells:
George, perhaps you should peruse my post again. You, or anyone else, has free will and is not obligated to believe in Eternal Truth -mine or anyone else’s. Heterosexual marriage long predates the birth of Christianity, and from a biological standpoint the species is dependent for survival beyond a single generation on heterosexuality.
Whether one chooses to accept the truth of the previous statement is their personal choice. The problem we have at present is the demand from the left that those of us who have chosen to believe the previous statement of truth no longer be allowed to believe as we choose.
@George Wells:
Yes, George, your statement that a nation has a sovereign right to murder someone because they disagree with behavioral choices is most certainly a totalitarian leftist sentiment. It certainly flies in the face of your post decrying being judgmental
My discourse pointing out the inherent evil of islam is in response to the typically leftist attempt to make all religions equivalent. You again bring up past cultural Christian societal views (that are not based on any Christian doctrine and are not current belief) in an attempt to deflect from the clear and current islamic doctrinal characterization of women as being lesser than men.
If islam wasn’t consistently violently at odds with those who do not believe what the quran says, there would be no issue. People would choose to live by or reject that system of beliefs, just as people choose to live by or reject Christian, Judaic, Taoist, Buddhist, or any other relgious doctrines. With reference to your point on Northern Ireland, it isn’t Catholic not Protestant DOCTRINE that is the cause of that violence, but the misuse of religious labels by the opposing POLITICAL forces to motivate the opposing camps in clear violation of the religious doctrines of both sects of Christianity.
There is nothing in Christian doctrine that requires followers to force others to convert, extort protection/subjugation money, or die. Neither does Judaism, or any other religion, with the exception of islam. The quran explicitly requires muslims to convert, subjugate, or kill those “religions of the book” (referring to Christians and Jews), or simply to convert or kill those non-muslims who are not “religions of the book”. In Christian and Mosaic doctrines, lying is considered a sin. Islam requires muslims to lie for the purpose of gaining advantage over non-muslims. Read the quran yourself. Study the Haddith.
All of this is a rebuttal of the false attempt at moral equivalence presented in this thread by the anti-Christian undercurrent that is so prevalent in leftist ideology.
@Pete #19:
That’s Odd. I don’t recall ever posting anything about anyone being “judgmental.” Kindly reference that conversation.
I also can’t figure out how a state’s decision to execute a person who made the behavioral choice to murder someone makes that state “leftist.” Is Texas a “leftist” state? I believe in the death penalty – is that “leftist?” Tell me how that is a “totalitarian leftist sentiment?” And you might also want to alert the GOP, as it supports that “leftist” form of punishment. The death penalty for murder/the death penalty for homosexuality – what’s the difference? Both are identified in scripture and abominable sins punishable by stoning to death, are they not? Is the Bible “Leftist?”
When evangelical Christians travel to Uganda and encourage leaders there to punish homosexuals to death, are they being “leftists?”
If the people who argue that America should respect the civil rights that the European Union is affording its citizens are “leftists,” then are the people who object to that and who think we have a sovereign right to self-determination with respect to our OWN civil rights ALSO leftists? Is EVERY person you disagree with a “leftist?” Is every dictator a “leftist?” I think that you have developed a pathological aversion to “leftness.” I think that you hallucinate – you imagine “leftists” lurking in every shadow. You are a “leftophobe!”
Women are still excluded from the priesthood in the Catholic Church, are they not? And this exclusion is based upon Christian doctrine, is it not? This discrimination is current, but is NOT mentioned to deflect attention from Islamic treatment of females. I haven’t bothered to mention Islamic treatment of females because, like Islamic treatment of gays, it isn’t my problem. I’m not CONCERNING myself with Islam because I have more than enough enemies right here at home – Republicans who think I am criminally ill and who have plenty of appropriate punishments in mind. (They’re probably closet leftists.)
I attended a Celanese Diversity Training seminar in which a man stood up and said proudly that he was from Texas and that “in Texas we string up queers and hang them.” I know that that is the standard punishment in Iran or Uganda, but I also know that the sentiment is already here and that attempting to eradicate it in Islam won’t help Americans.
Of course that is correct. It is correct now, and it was correct at the time of the Spanish inquisition. Doctrine isn’t what kills people, it is the people who believe that doctrine that do the killing. It wasn’t agnostics or atheists killing each other in Northern Ireland, it was Catholics and Protestants. Doctrine or politics? Do you REALLY think that the common man in Northern Ireland knew the difference?
Every night I pray:
“Dear God, protect me from your followers.”
@George Wells:
And just what would those vestiges be, George? Oh, this?
Of course. Due to the teachings of Paul. You have heard of Paul, haven’t you?
Then we have this:
A purely leftist statement that when called on it, you obfuscate with this, trying to equivocate:
How is the death penalty for one person who abdicated their own humanity by taking the life of another equal to murdering a whole segment of society? It’s not, and your example (outside of the fact that you seem to hold great animus toward Texas and Texans) is absurd.
Are you having another episode, George? How about proving that really happened? Oh, you can’t, you say? Then why make a statement that is not provable except to take a cheap shot?
Yep. Because the common man in Northern Ireland wanted to remain loyal to the Crown, and the British empire. The common man in Southern Ireland wanted Ireland to be a free, and independent, nation, as the Brits had promised and then went back on their agreement made. The fact that the north was Church of England and the south was Catholic was not the reason they fought, although that is the fairy tale put out by the press. It was due to national loyalties.
I have repeatedly suggested you up your dose of Aracept. Perhaps Pete can offer some advise.
@Pete: #15
“Judge not lest thou be judged”
I’ve often wondered why people make such a big deal about this. If you’re not afraid of being judged, then what’s the problem?
No, I’m not claiming that anyone has lived a perfect life, but that doesn’t mean that you should be afraid of being judged.
I just don’t get it.
@George Wells:
So many egregious errors, George. I find it hard to believe that you actually believe the rant you posted.
In your post #11, you referred to “Judge not lest you be judged”. There is your reference to your position.
The state executing someone for committing a capital crime like murder is very different from what you argue for in your post about the right of a sovereign nation to kill people for the behavioral choice of acting on homosexual urges. Last I checked, Texas – the state in which I live – is not executing people for engaging in homosexual acts…unlike Iran and the areas controlled by ISIS. The position you are taking is an example of leftist deception, as you try to equate things that are not, in fact, equal. You argue a ridiculous concept (theocracy is evil, but slaughtering those afflicted with homosexual urges is ok because it is against biblical teaching) which you try -in spectacular failure – to tie to Christian doctrinal beliefs. The cognitive dissonace is breathtaking, George. Please provide New Testament passages which require Christians to stone anyone to death.
Please provide instances of Christian leaders traveling to Uganda urging their government to stone homosexuals to death.
I was waiting for the tired drivel about “women can’t be priests” that leftists bring up out of their deliberate misunderstanding of Catholicism. Men can’t be nuns, either. Men cannot give birth. Christ did not decide to select his own mother, whom Catholics revere as the only human not to be afflicted with original sin, nor Mary Magdelene, who per Catholic doctrine did not deny Christ as Peter and the rest of the Apostles did during His trial, to become priests. If Christ did not choose to have priestesses, a phenomenon well known via the other religions of that time period, despite His frequent deviations from Jewish religious law, upon what grounds should Catholics deviate from Christ’s behaviors? Where does Christ call for women to be slaves, chattel or property of men? (As islam explicitly states).
I am vehemently opposed to leftist ideology, and those who support such insane drivel. Leftism, as it has defined itself, is the right of the collective to impose its will via whatever force is necessary against any who disagree with the collectivist position. You judgmentally call me a “leftophobe”, without recognizing your own self-parody. Alas, the comedic essence of your post is overwhelmed by the detrimental absence of self-awareness.
Your Chamberlinian understanding which you express vis a vis: “the threat of islam doesn’t affect me” ignores the very explicit threat islam vocally presents to the non-muslim world, just as Hitler laid out his goals in Mein Kampf. Ignore such obvious reality at your own peril. Or have you not heard of ISIS?
Because you present an anecdote of one lunatic who you claim is from Texas, who claimed was a state that lynched queers, do not expect those of us who live in Texas and (gasp) work daily with people afflicted with homosexual tendencies yet do not lynch, abuse, beat or in any other way harm nor harass them in any way, to believe such a pathetic misrepresentation of Texans, Christian or not.
I do, however, want to give you credit for admitting that it is not – nor ever has been – Christian doctrine to brutalize others, but the acting against Christian doctrine that led to the evil inappropriately associated with Christian beliefs throughout the last 2000 plus years.
And George – please understand that I am not demanding, insisting, nor even asking you, nor anyone else to believe what I believe. The only thing I have been trying to say throughout this entire post is that no one has the right to force me – so long as I am not physically harming anyone – to abandon my beliefs in favor of the current popular cultural zeitgeist. Don’t waste pseudointellectual resources equating public expression of Christian doctrine with the likes of Manson, or some wierdo cultists castrating themselves while waiting to be teleported to a fictitious spaceship behind a comet. But don’t expect me, or others who believe as I do to sit silently while the foundational Judeo-Christian framework upon which our society was originally built is desecrated with the philosophical rot of what passes for leftist “philosophy”.
I’ve often mused about the ironic possibility of Jesus’ return (or in the case of the Judaic the coming of the “Messiah”,) Yet God’s plan being continually thwarted because of abortionists.
@Ditto #24:
Your long-anticipated house-guest demurs because the moral weather is unpleasant? He was expected to sift through all of us and take the best cut, or wasn’t that the plan? I suspect that the REAL reason for the delay is the internet. God’s hooked on playing free poker and watching one-minute porn clips and can’t be bothered with filling vacancies in the Kingdom of Heaven. Seems nobody’s perfect anymore.
@Pete #23:
That was my question to YOU. I thought, evidently incorrectly, that as an APPARENT Christian, you’d agree with the admonition, as it appears repeatedly in the scriptures. I don’t buy it, personally, but your studied discussion seemed to stray way to the right of the advice to leave the application of such judgment to God. I wasn’t “decrying being judgmental.” I was questioning what appeared to my “comically delusional mind” to be a contradiction on YOUR part – that you sounded like in God’s absence, you and yours were justified to pick up the slack and yourselves put folks to death. Evidently, the idea that “life is sacred” is quickly evoked in the case of abortion, but just as quickly forgotten in the application of the Death Penalty. Oh, I think that life is cheap and NOT sacred, and I support the taking of it in all sorts of instances where a society makes that choice. But I am confused by your schizoid adherence to the opposite perspective.
Help me understand what the difference is. Biblically, both are abominations,. right? I keep hearing how so many of the OLD TESTAMENT admonitions have been properly relaxed – like stoning a child to death for talking trash to its parents, or a similar punishment for a woman cutting her hair – but that the sin of homosexuality is OH-SO-MUCH more terrible than those other sins that the proscriptions against it CANNOT be relaxed. How is it that you get to pick and choose? How can you say out of one corner of your mouth that the sin of homosexuality is so much more serious than a smart-mouth kid that its continued punishment is warranted (it IS, isn’t it?), and then out of the other corner of your mouth say that a state DOESN’T have the right to punish it severely if it chooses to? What metric do you use to distinguish which abominable sin is a mortal one and which is not? And why is that “leftist?”
And if you prefer not to justify the death penalty for gays by evoking scripture, what about the threat to national security? TREASON is a threat to national security. TREASON is punishable by death. I suspect (I don’t KNOW, one way or the other) that you support the death penalty for treason. I do too. But then I get confused when someone argues that illegal immigration threatens our national security (I agree that it does) but then becomes alarmed when I suggest making illegal immigration punishable by death. Are we splitting hairs over threats to our national security? Either something’s a threat or it isn’t. One of the GOP’s MANY justifications for keeping gays out of the military was that homosexuals were a threat to our national security. Without sifting through the self-serving homophobic illogic of those arguments, if you REALLY believe that homosexuals are a threat to the national security, why aren’t you in favor of giving them the same compassionate punishment that people who commit treason receive?
Intense!
If I am truly as insane as you suggest, and about half of the rest of the country is similarly afflicted, why haven’t you quarantined us? The GOP likes to build more prisons – what’s stopping you now?
Every one of us is “afflicted” with imperfections.
Every one of us has a unique set of beliefs.
I don’t begrudge your imperfections OR your beliefs.
Neither do I wish either my “afflictions” OR my beliefs upon you.
I DO wish that people would stop attempting to force THEIR beliefs on me, but I don’t see that happening. Ever.
So you go on believing in your Jesus myth and the importance of tragically old ideas, but remember that not all ideas survive because they are good or true.
@George Wells:
George, honestly, do you not see the increasingly bizarre tone of your posts? You seem to be attempting to bait me into agreeing with your strange bit of “kill gays…stone people…that’s what the Bible says!” I get it…you have intense antipathy towards the Bible. The simple fact is, just because I choose to try to follow Christian/Catholic doctrine (admittedly too often failing) why should it bother you? Why such histrionic ravings? I could certainly understand you railing against the very real and ongoing violence perpetrated by muslims – people are being brutally murdered, women forced into sexual slavery, homosexuals being thrown off tall buildings then stoned by mobs on the ground if they are still breathing, all in compliance with islam. You can easily google search the veracity of that statement. Yet you obsess and verbally thrash Christian doctrine because of what, exactly? Do you recall where you were 14 years ago today?
Alas, I don’t have time to engage in Christian apologetics today, as I have a long drive across Texas to the medical conference where I am lecturing on delivery room medical issues.
To all on FA, regarding today, never forget.
@ Pete #27:
I have antipathy toward the Bible and the people who use it to justify persecuting homosexuals. It isn’t Muslims who argued that homosexual behavior should be criminalized in America, it was Scalia and company, and the mob of evangelical Republicans who still feel that way. THESE people are the IMMEDIATE threat to my freedom, not ISIS, not Al Qaeda, not the Taliban, not the Koran or the Muslims who follow it.
I have much more than “antipathy” for Muslims who want to destroy what we have – I support nuking a few ISIS strongholds to make an example they MIGHT notice. But that doesn’t give civil-rights-attacking Christians a free pass in my book.
If I complained about Muslims stoning homosexuals in Tehran every time Mike Huckabee urged Christians to keep opposing homosexuals, you’d think I was cognitively impaired. Oh, right… you ALREADY think that. But maybe if you explain to me how Muslims attacking Iranian gays has anything at all to do with the GOP’s efforts to restrict gay rights, I would be just that much LESS confused.
I asked you to explain why two apparently equally abominable sins should be punished differently, and you can’t, or won’t, instead choosing to insult me for “bizarre, histrionic ravings.” That’s a fine way to conduct a discussion. For a physician, you exhibit surprisingly little compassion for the afflicted. I’m not impressed.
Time to heal yourself, Doc.
@George Wells:
George, I am not insulting you by classifying the tone of your successive posts, and the bottom line seems to have finally crept out in your last post. What I find interesting is that you have provided evidence supporting my contention – made by many others before me – that the vehemence of the continued anti-Christian culturopolitical movement is based in the inability of those engaging in acts clearly opposed by Christian doctrine to tolerate the existence of any system of morals that disagrees, opposes or condemns the acts. Again, I ask you why you care what I or others think of what you do, when we are clearly not persecuting you simply because we disagree with you based on our religious beliefs.
One with actual psychiatric credentials would be able to better define the apparent self-loathing that comes through in your posts that leads you to continually misjudge the perceived (and non-existent) threats to your lifestyle choices as more dangerous than the actual, lethal threat.
I can only assume your reference to Scalia is with regards to either his opinion on the Texas sodomy case some years back, his dissenting opinion on Obergefehl, or both. Neither opinion, George, is persecution of those afflicted with homosexual urges, and I would place your previous posts supporting the right of sovereign nations to murder homosexuals, juxtaposed with your clear disdain for Scalia and anyone who has a Christian basis for opposing homogamy as evidence of my contention of your self-loathing.
Frankly, the homogamy movement lost all credibility on “equal rights” by their use of brownshirt tactics against those who supported Prop 8, the Oregon bakery, the Washington florist, the New Mexico wedding photographers, and the Indiana pizzaria – attacking these folks for simply not wanting to be forced to participate in something that violates their constitutionally protected religious rights, or for donating money to the Prop 8 campaign. The fascist tactics used clearly show this is not about “equal rights” at all.
I know you are trying to get me to play your strange game of explaining your perception of Biblical punishments – notably from the Old Testament, as you have revealingly avoided answering my specific question to you regarding any references in the New Testament where Christ called for stoning anyone.
George, I am not God. I didn’t set up which punishments were for which sins. I do not, nor ever will, have all the answers. What I would suggest is that you are free to deny reality – potentially for a very long time – but eventually you will reach the point where you WILL deal with the consequences of ignoring reality.
@Pete #29:
When you “oppose and condemn” what I do, where does that end? How am I assured that, given the chance, you will not ALSO incarcerate me?. Opposing and condemning sounds like an appropriate response to a crime, doesn’t it? This seems logical to me, yet you say that I am irrational. That’s confusing.
You have said that I am “afflicted.” Did you mean that I am diseased? Are you planning to “cure” me and others like me? Or if you have no real cure, isn’t institutionalization the next option?
And I keep answering, and yet you do not hear. It is not what you and others THINK that is the problem. It is what you and others DO that alarms us. You dismiss Scalia’s Lawrence dissent as if it is ancient history, yet it was just ten years ago, and the man is STILL fighting AGAINST gay rights on the Supreme Court. The GOP party platform STILL is opposed to any effort to grant gays ANY sort of equal protection, not in the ENDA legislation, not in overturning DOMA, not in allowing gays in the military, not in supporting marriage equality.
Without Democratic resistance, exactly how far back do you think the GOP would like to turn the clock? How many newspapers covered the historic “Stonewall” riots? How often did you hear ANYTHING about a homosexual in the news? Anything positive? Not only were WE closeted, our VERY EXISTENCE was closeted! And if you think that we WEREN’T the targets of malicious persecution and insidious discrimination, you are dreadfully misinformed.
You believe that I am self-loathing? Perhaps after spending my formative childhood hearing from clergy, educators, healthcare professionals and law enforcement personnel exactly how loathsome and despicable gay people are, some measure of self-loathing would be expected. I was humiliated at my failure to be the son my parents wanted. I perceived that I was “different” as soon as I entered school and found that other boys marched to a different drum – long before I had ANY idea what sex was about. My first sexual experience was at age 25, AFTER honorably serving six years in the US Navy. That was after almost 20 years of waiting and praying to become “normal.” No, I am not so much “self loathing” as I am bitter that I bought into what I now believe to have been a bunch of lies.
Somebody did, and HE wasn’t God.
I don’t know if you see the problem with your own analysis or not.
“Opposing and condemning” is NOT an ”appropriate response to a crime.”
Those two things are the beginnings of legislation, law enforcement, arrest, indictment, trial, guilty verdict then sentence and punishment.
Christians, on the other hand, in a religion which does NOT claim to also be the perfect basis for human governance, are told by god to allow Him to be the final arbiter in meting out justice…..vengance is mine, I will repay, He says.
Muslims, conversely, are in a religion which DOES claim to also be a perfect basis for human governance.
They have such a weak god that they, personally, must wreak their version of justice….throwing gays off roofs, whipping to death those who ”insult” their prophet, raping improperly covered females of all ages, keeping slaves, killing drinkers, pork eaters, musicians, dogs.
It is the Muslim you have a beef with.
Are you brave enough to take them on?
Christians know that you will be repaid in full for your actions BY God in a Judgement so they only warn you and, yes, condemn and oppose your actions.
@Nanny G #31:
I am truly mystified by your – any everyone else’s here – obsession with my relationship with Muslims. Muslims didn’t beat me up when I was child, Christian children did. Muslim cops didn’t bloody gay club patrons when I was a young adult, Christian cops did. Muslims didn’t enact anti-sodomy laws in the United States, Christians did. Christians opposed adding gays to ENDA legislation, opposed Civil Unions for gays (yes, they opposed civil unions too until we started to win gay marriage cases), in fact they opposed EVERYTHING we have asked for. MUSLIMS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FIGHT OVER CIVIL RIGHTS IN AMERIC!
Why is that so hard to understand?
I can’t fight Islam if Christians put me in jail!
And there are plenty of you who would do just that!
Maybe not you. GREAT! I’ll sleep better tonight!
But the fight for marriage equality in America isn’t about ISIS.
I’ve already supported nuking ISIS, what more do you want?
Like that hateful witch Retire05, you want me to go to Syria to fight them personally?
I’m going on 66 with complications of diabetes and weigh 128 pouinds. I served my country with distinction for six years during the Vietnam War. What do you expect me to do now that I have not already done? Fighting ISIS is somebody else’s battle, not mine.
@Pete #29:
Sorry I forgot to answer this:
I “avoided” answering that “specific” question because it did not relate to my statement on Biblical punishments which were enumerated in the Old Testament, a document that I mistakenly (?) believed is part of the Bible. You may note that I didn’t bother to cite specific passages either, as I was under the impression that readers didn’t NEED such citations to prove to them that the Bible condemned homosexuality and prescribed appropriate punishments for people who committed homosexual acts. I find it appalling that many Christians pick and choose passages from the Old Testament that they want to adhere to, and use those same passages to support their opposition to homosexual civil rights, and then act as if the Old Testament has nothing to do with Christianity when pressed on the absurdity it contains. It WAS written before Christ was born. Christ wasn’t into stoning… so what? If the Old Testament is wrong or irrelevant, why is it offered as proof of God’s intent? Hypocrisy, anyone?
@retire05 #21:
It was a company function, and I was an employee, not a reporter with a video camera. I have no proof, but what reason would I have to lie? Your implication that I am manufacturing this proves what a poor judge of character you are. If you REALLY believed that all I’m doing is posting lies, why do you bother to respond to them? The ring of truth in my words should be deafening, but like Quasimodo, the clap and peal of your own bigotry has robbed you of your senses.
@George Wells: #34
Well, I’m calling bullshit in this one.
First, you have a company employee standing up in a company diversity indoctrination seminar and “proudly” saying something that was certain to get him fired…
You seem to be the only one who thinks that someone would be stupid enough to do that.
Oh, right, you claimed that he was from Texas. That makes it okay. One of those uneducated bible-belt men, right?
You are a bigot.
Next time, make the man from Wyoming. It would be more believable.
Then you do not provide documentation of one person being hanged in Texas.
Liar and bigot- the usual twofer.
@George Wells:
George, sorry for the delay, but I just drove back from the lecture I gave this morning.
Thank you for your naval service to this country, and I am sorry you are having complications with your diabetes. I truly hope you are able to achieve a medical improvement.
Not that I am trying to make light of your past experiences, but would it surprise you to know that moving as frequently as I did as a child, I got beaten up and made fun of by other kids when I started a new school for being a nerd. I assume they were mostly Christians, and it was clear they were white. Their actions did not define them as Christians, but simply as immature kids.
I got my degree in Acting and Filmmaking, George. A significant number of the people with whom I built friendships had gay tendencies. The friend I chose as my best man when I got married the first time would easily be characterized as “flaming” in his demeanor. I work daily with nurses, male and female, who make no bones about their homosexual nature. Do you honestly think that I hate or despise homosexuals, simply because I have religious beliefs that view acting on homosexual urges as sinful? Do you really believe that I am just slobbering over the idea of rounding up gays, putting them in prison, or harassing them in any way?
I vehemently disagree with leftist economic policies, and work to oppose people who think they have a right to impose even greater confiscatory taxes on me to buy the votes of the economically illiterate and the lazy. Does that mean I want to put them in jail, or kill them?
I don’t care what you or anyone else does consensually with another adult in their own home. What I absolutely will not abide is being told I must support what anyone else does if such coercion would force me to violate my religious, moral or philosophical principles. That is why I refuse to perform clitorectomies (female “circumcision”) when I have been asked by muslim parents to do so.
Don’t know how else to explain to you, George, that my opposition to homogamy and the inherent unhealthiness of homosexuality does not make me your enemy unless you decide to make it so. I am not going to support any movement to imprison, abuse or execute you because of your homosexual tendencies. I am not going to force you to undergo reparative therapy. I am not going to invade your home, nor do anything to stop you from doing whatever you want to do in your home. I am not going to try to deprive you of the right to have your homosexual partner with you in the hospital. I am not going to try to get you fired from your job for having gay tendencies. But I am not going to march in a gay pride parade, nor go to a homogamy ceremony, either.
Think what you will, but it seems rather a waste to me that you chose to get worked up about what I believe when I am not doing anything to stop you – but simply disagreeing with you. Just because the fools from Westboro act like hooligans call themselves Christian doesn’t mean that they are, nor that they represent the vast majority of Christians.
@Pete #36:
No, Pete, I don’t think that at all. Did I say otherwise?
We have had discussions before, and you made your position clear at that time, and by your #36 comments it is also clear that your view hasn’t changed. I’m fine with that. I’m not trying to win any converts here at FA – I’d be insane if I expected to. I’ve said before that I am first here for mental stimulation. I have some cognitive impairment that I’m told is rather more prevalent among diabetics than among the rest of the population for a given age, and I’m a firm believer in the “use-it-or-lose-it” theory. So I argue – something that I was once reasonably good at – and find that it is much better than gardening for clearing the cobwebs upstairs. Also, I attempt to share with others my perspectives, as I THINK that I have some of those that the folks here are unfamiliar with. I have been less successful in this direction, as most here seem to think that I am part of an organized group of Marxist extremists bent on destroying America. Nothing could be further from the truth, but I have failed to convince anyone of that. In the mean time, I acknowledge that your proficiency in applying exclusionary nomenclatures suggests an education level far above my own, and your use of that vocabulary to confuse is a debate strategy that is difficult to counter. Yes, well done, as is what I find to be an on-again, off-again tendency to condescend. That said, you are welcome for your thanks for my military service. It was certainly not popular back then, but then again, I haven’t been on the popular side of much of anything until rather recently.
Back to the hating homosexuals. I does not bother me – and certainly doesn’t surprise me – that many folks stand opposed to gay rights. I’ve lived with that all my life. Since I lived for so many years closeted, I wasn’t personally at risk of homophobic violence, although living a lie can’t really be good for one’s frame of mind, can it? But now that we’re out and married – admittedly both are personal choices – I have exchanged the gruesome reality of subterfuge for exposure to whatever the gross public chooses to throw my way. As Retire05 regularly demonstrates, that can be ugly. I accept that, too, but I am constantly aware that uncontrolled anger can spontaneously transform into physical violence. It is the World we live in. Risk isn’t always manageable.
I agree with this statement in principle. We HAVE created a dependent class that is economically illiterate and lazy. We ENABLED that class. We BUILT it person by person. I am reminded how in natural populations, population grows directly in response to growth of the food supply – whenever more individuals are born than the food supply can sustain, starvation corrects the imbalance. Letting excess population starve may seem inhumane, but feeding a starving population simply encourages more reproduction, and the problem grows larger. This same effect occurs in your “leftist economics.” Paying welfare, however humane the intent, simply begets more welfare recipients. The system that was intended to humanely help folks get from one self-sufficient point to the next instead shunted them into dependency, drugging them with unearned sustenance. At this point, it’s a HUGE problem (as Trump might say) and a whole lot of people might also say that cutting off that support would be inhumane. Perhaps it would and perhaps it wouldn’t, but I offer that the point of humanity in this context is moot. What matters now is that there are MILLIONS of dependent people, and their collective… shall we say: “disappointment?” at being cut off would precipitate a catastrophic… “event.” I’m concerned that the cure might be worse than the disease.
I have no desire to make you, or anyone else march in a parade or be a party to a wedding you disapprove of. In every discussion I have participated in here, I have DISAGREED with the people fighting so-called “religious freedom” advocates. If “conscientious objection” could get you out of fighting Communism in South-East Asia, a similar objection should get you out of baking a cake. I have attempted to EXPLAIN the rationale being offered to the contrary, but I don’t adhere to those arguments. Nanny G offered that my argument for restraint is akin to what she called “incrementalism,” and I’m not sure if she was happy with it or not. But gays have already gotten ahead of the curve, so-to-speak, and the rest of the country needs more time to adjust than gay advocates are giving them. It might be helpful to point out here that MOST gays had nothing to do with the political upheaval that has occurred in the arena of gay rights, other than perhaps having donated financial support to the ACLU or the HRC. Most gays are ASTONISHED at the rapidity of their success. Most gays DON’T want to rock this new boat too much, lest it capsize. Most of us don’t want to breathe too loudly, lest the moment evaporate. The other day, I heard that some mass murderer turned out to be gay, and I thought “There goes the ball game!” The courts are one thing, but the public is another. It’s fickle. Gays were making huge strides toward acceptance back in the late 70’s (it got fashionable to have gay friends at parties) and then AIDS hit. We were suddenly back at the top of the pariah column. It could happen again. So, no, it isn’t the time for gays to be hating anyone, or to be forcing anyone to go anywhere they aren’t ready to go.
@George Wells:
Fair enough, George.
Please understand that the manner with which I debate, including the vocabulary I use is certainly not meant to be condescending, and I am sorry it seems to co.e across that way. Honestly, I don’t know how else to communicate what I think and believe, and would absolutely feel I was being condescending if I made the assumption that those with whom I debate needed me to “dumb down” my words.
This thread seems to have petered out, though, so let me sign off by saying I believe there are far more urgent matters facing our nation – from an existential standpoint – than our personal disagreements vis a vis homogamy and Christian doctrine in this thread.
@Pete #38:
Yes, agreeing doesn’t have the same entertainment value that disagreeing has.
Thanks for your time.
Good bye.