Mixing God and Politics - Freepers don't have much faith..

[bleedingheart]

While doing visibility there was a freeper woman who kept screaming out loud to passersby that "God would Elect *"...that he was "ordained from on high"...

So...being the complete smart ass that I am...I said to her..."If you have so much faith in God...why are you out here canvassing?"
"If you truly believe * will win...why even be here?"...

Clearly...no faith....

[Nicholas_J]

1. First of all

Such a statement , in both old testement and new testement theology would be considered blasphemous. In fact with all of the misinformation (known as false witness in the bible) that Bush has given regarding Iraq, and all of the effprts to deny people the rigght to vote, the suggestion that God assisted Bush become president would be doubly blaspemous.

In fact, the entire focus that the freeperelious give to both abortion and issues of sexual preference are scarecely mentioned in the New Testement, not mentioned in the 4 gospels at all.
Christ own words are focused far more on social justice than anything else, and homoaexuality and abortion are only mentioned a few times in the rest of the New Testement, with social justice again being the lions share of the content. While there is a bit more coverage of the issues of homosexuality and abortion in the old tesetement, issues of social justice far outnumber these brief mentions. In the thousands fold areas.

The Freepereligious claim to interpret the bible literally, but they give little attention to how Christ,who in Christianity IS GOD, expected people to deal with social justice and wealth. When Christ says to take all you have and give it to the poor, the tendency of the "Freepereligious moves well away from the literal interpretation and then moves to religious spin. Christ was if anything being more literal in this area than in any other area. He literally meant that a Christian was to give up all they had and give it to the poor.

In the times that Christ lived, people were expeccted to marry, and then provide for their families, just what was needed. They were expected to give all of their excess for purposes of social justice, and once they reached middle age, they were generally expected to stop working to earn money, once they hadmet their obligations to their families, and sort of enter a religious life, of prayer and contemplation.

This in particular was why Christ pointed out to the rich man who said to him "What must I do to attain eternal life" that he must give all he had to the poor and to come and follow him.
The man who was rich said that he had kept all the commandments, and Chist said that was good, and then went on to remind him of the religious obligation that the Old Testement calls for which he HAD NOT YET MET. And that is that once you have enough to keep you fed,clothed, and housed, and had but enough aside to care for your wife for her lifetime, your children until they came of age and were either married if a woman, or earning their own way if a man, you were supposed to give the excess away, as it belonged to God and not yourself, as God gave it to you to use for him.

In a very real sense, both the Old and NEw Testements did not approve of passing of entore fortunes from one gneration to the next but in fact all indications are that they very seriously opposed such behavior as unnatural, as it gave an unnatural advantage to the next generation, and frequently resulted in the incometant running things (as we see in America today)

So the religious among the freepers have a strong tendency to have a cafeteria mentality when it comes to the obligations placed upon them by their own God.

If you look closely at the portions of the New Testement that Freepers choose to focus on, it becomes apparent that they select the pagan elements that were grafted onto Christs basic reformation of Judaism.

The idea that one must beleive in Christ to be saved, because all humans are imperfect does not exist in Judaism. It is basically a grafting of the Platonic ideal of the perfect realm (or heaven), onto Judaism. So the idea that only the completely pure can go to the pure realm is one of the pagan ideas that they have taken on. Yet when it comes to how one lives in this world, they pretty much ignore the social obligations that Christ has placed upon them, and decided to focus on issues that are pretty much a side line in the entire bible. Homosexuality and abortion. Social justice is mentioned on every page of the bible, the the issues focused on by fundamentalists are mentioned in no more than a dozen places in the entire Bible.

Which is why it is my belief that fundmentalist Christianity should not be considered Christianity at all, but an extremely large cult, superficially based on Christian ideas, but in fact,based more on ancient pagan philosophy.

I am tinkering with the idea of writing a book on the topic, but consider carefully as I would likely be setting myself up for a public stoning if I did it.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

2. I think you should right a book, you have good analytical interpretations

It might not be well-received in the Bible-Belt, I grant you. But, there are enlightened Blue States, Canada and a liberal Europe.

[Nicholas_J]

3. I am good with finding the statistics

I am Very good with the history of the growth of Christianity and the various factional battles that
were responsible for the shape of Christianity as it exists today. The Arian/Athnasian arguments. the fact that Current day fundamentalist Christianity far more resembles the ideas of the Gnostic or Gnostic leaning sects than traditional Christianity over the last 2000 years. It seems that Fundamentalist Christianity is Christianity without the human Christ at all. To me it seems like the Fundamentalists have finally created a Christ in their own image, which is very disheartening.

From an eschatalogical it actually seems that the Fundamentalists may be the very people who follow the person called the false Prophet, in Revelations. There is absolutely no reason to assume that the religion and the religious figure who turns people from the "true religion" of Christ, will not in fact be a Christian who so perverts Christianity that it has nothing to do with the central message of the New Testement,rather than the new age and non-Christian religions that are so frequently attacked by Fundamentalists. There is a good deal in the New Testement to suggest that this is what is suggested in Revelations and other eschatological writings in the BIble.

Thanks though. I worry more about my skills as writer than my reseach skills and ability to put the ideas together.

I am amused by the prospect that Fundamentalists, who are so rabis about attacking other faiths as well as paganism that has its roots in Northern Europe, may in fact be perpetuating and perverting Christianity into a paganism that has its roots in the Mediterranean.

[derbstyron]

4. mixed messages

Republicans continue to distort the message of Jesus Christ. There is no love in their teachings of the "word", no compassion. Why is it that the right wing fringe cult are the same wackos who cut services to the poor and needy?

Organized religion bastardizes everything good and noble about what I find in being spiritual.

God is noble and beautiful. Religion (an entirely man-made creation) is not.