Hello dearly beloved,
Lol. I Always wanted to use that. Brothers and sisters, today, I come to you with a little complaint.
Any of you who still have facebook accounts (and hopefully have not been timelined yet, not that it matters anyway) by now should have seen some of those intimidating pictures posted by well-meaning Christian “friends” telling you to “share this or that if you love Jesus too” or “Hit like of you’re part of the 5% who’re not afraid to declare their love for Christ.”
As much as I hate to say this (and I really do hate to), there’s a load of bull in those posts, imho.
You get the same thing on twitter too: retweet if you love Jesus and stuff like that. I honestly do not have any problem with people publicly declaring their faith and so on. Shoving it in other’s faces just isn’t nice. At all.
I don’t have much to say against this, as it’s all very subjective. Each Jesus-Christ-Like-Or-Die post increasingly gets on my nerves, and I begin to sympathize with atheists. I begin to understand why such people, the “intellectual society” will choose to look down on their Christian friends and shake their heads at our awkward little pronouncements of faith.
What they think really happens up there.
For me, faith is a very personal thing; not really meant to be discussed ad hoc on the (cyber) streets, but to be debated in well organized places. I must admit my personal flavour of Christianity is vastly different compared to what most other people I know believe.
There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by your faith, but intimidating me, playing the good ol’ guilt card to make me “Like” or share or retweet your post is just stupid and lame. It just makes the devil in me lash out and scroll past or even taunt such images. Such faith is superficial and just plain obscene! Last I checked, it was the devil who played on people like that.
I get it. We have something called “Freedom of Speech” but no one really blows the clarion of “Responsibility For What You Speak”. Those who make and post such stuff, I’ll keep my harshest thoughts to myself. Damn me to hell for all I care. And to those who somehow share/like.retweet what they see, if it’s out of interest or sheer fun, think twice about what you’re playing with. If it is about faith, then stop it; just stop it. It’s not cool.
Shaking my head,
Jesse
This! Every time I see one of those posts I roll my eyes. Enough of them get you hidden from my newsfeed. But, then again, I have the same rule about a bunch of other Facebook faux pas… like Facebook status updates re: how someone’s labor is progressing. Just show us the cute baby after it’s all over!
o_0 never seen the labour progress reports before. Now that’ll be interesting. lol At times I may go hard on my own beliefs just to prove a point, that some things generally suck in the not-so-comfortable-to-discuss section.
Yeah, they’re awkward. The words “______ centimeters dilated” should never appear on Facebook.
I do not agree with you entirely. It is true there are some who post these things because they want all to know they are Christian, though their lifestyle do not reflect their christianity. BUT, i would never sympathize with an atheist, their way of life is based on human knowledge. If you want to condemn a Christian brother do so. Paul says we should remove the evil person from the group. God hates people with lukewarm attitude.
Amoat, thanks for reading and commenting.
It seems you don’t know some of my deepest feelings about certain things, including this. If you’ve lived with a bunch of (over)zealous Christians before, you’ll know why. If you know someone who boldly tells you that he will kill anyone if God tells him to do it, then you know what I’m dealing with.
As to atheism being based on human knowledge, well, what isn’t? For one thing, the Bible is based on human knowledge. The only reason Christians see the Bible the way it is seen is because they came to a consensus (over a thousand years ago, at Nicea) on what to accept as the word of God. It’s called “inspired by God” for reasons of cohesion. But it’s all human knowledge, from human experience. Nothing new there. (Remember: my ways are above your ways, my thoughts are above your thoughts.)
Also, according to the Christian values you adhere to, God created that human knowledge too.
dat’s wher u’re wrong. Human knowledge cannot inspire something so wonderful, accurate and life changing as the bible. What John talks about in revelation is not from our limited human knowledge. The wise sayings of solomon is not from human knowledge. God granted him that knowledge. HIS WORD CANNOT BE INSPIRED BY MORTALS.
Amoat. I understand where you are coming from. You do not seem to appreciate the fact that what you believe as “the Bible”, that book, did not drop from heaven. It was not magically compiled to become what it is today. A group of people (the council of Nicea, do your research) sat down to agree on what you and I believe today is God’s word.
I am Catholic. You are not. Do you know Catholics have books in our Bible you Protestants discredit? Now if they are all inspired by God, one of us should be right, shouldn’t that be the case? As far as I know, God is not inconsistent. Humans are. The Bible is inconsistent. It contains some of God’s word, but not all of it. Hardly.
Let me give you another example: Did you know that Peter, the apostle, quoted from the book of Enoch in his letters? So does that make the book of Enoch God’s Word? Part of the Bible? If it is, why haven’t we included it in the Bible? An even more glaring example: The Gospels. Consistent eh? So what really happened after Jesus died? Mathew, Mark and Luke seem to disagree? Why? because they are HUMAN!
Do not underestimate humanity. If humans were so low and inefficient, as you seem to suggest, God wouldn’t have made Jesus human. At all. Human thought is powerful, just as God made it. Also understand this. If God is infinite, as so many Christians claim, then his word CANNOT possibly be limited to a few books bound by leather that we call the Bible. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but his word is much bigger than that.
By your reasoning,none of us have got God’s full word, because even the Coptic churches have other books you do not recognize. Talk of a divided Word of God. That’s a monumental laughing stock!
Consider this too: The Silmarillion, by JRR Tolkien, is the most inspiring book I’ve read. His mythology is also consistent. The Silmarillion has inspired me more than the Bible has, and may ever will. Does that make it a Bible? or more powerful? You see where you are wrong?
The fundamental error in Christianity is the belief that the Bible is the Word of God. Christ made it even clear to us that there’s a lot more than he’s going to teach.
ps. Tolkien wrote more exciting mythology than the Book of Revelations.
I share in your sentiment.
jesse, how can a book of mythology inspire you more than the bible? Biblical inspiration is the backbone of Christianity, and without it the entire edifice of Christian truth crumbles. The events recorded in a book of mythology will never happen. events recorded in the bible happened, are happening and will happen. i don’t see how myths can inspire a Christian. i wonder if u’ve ever won a soul for Christ before. If yes, how was it done? Human knowledge will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.
You raise an important point, but you are refusing to look at things from my perspective also. I think that is selfish. I find most Christians distastefully selfish because of this.
Remember, Jesus Christ was a Jew, yet he did not limit himself to what was revealed through Jewish scripture: you know why? Because he knew that there was much more out there than written in the books.
I expected you to raise comments about the arguments I put forth, but you have not. I will answer your question: I have always wanted to be a writer of high fantasy. Tolkien’s work has kept me going for over six years, and it keeps getting stronger. I’ll show you the fruit of my inspiration. Link you up on Facebook.
Now, if you’ll stop whining about common Christian cliches and address the issues I raised, I will be pleased.
Ok jesse. is faith a personal thing 4 u becos u’re shy to let others noe u’re christian? if u’re not shy, den u’re selfish. u’ve got to let others noe so dey can enjoy also da gud things u’re enjoying in Christ. We are mere mortals, we can’t tell if dat person posted those links from da depths of his heart, maybe through an experience he’s had. Who are we to judge?
I’m Christian and I don’t hide it. I’m also not blinded by it. I’m a rational Christian, because I use the head I was given, along with all that intellect, to reason things out. Many people blindly follow their faith, without thinking much about it. Without questioning it. Without analyzing and criticizing. If faith is true, it can withstand any form of critical inquiry.
Sadly, many Christians are too cowardly to face the truth. That, my friend, is the sad reality.
Jesse my geek friend