Good morning America!
To quote Steppenwolf, "America, where are you now? Your country needs you more than ever...." In flipping through the news this morn, and then hitting the chat rooms attached to those stories, I am amazed at what some people say. Based on the respondents, Christianity is void of love, or kindness of any kind. And having gone over Pat Robertson in prior postings, what of the gospel did we hear from him? Nothing! I don't believe the Bible for good reasons. I used to. I spent 13 years in that quagmire. I was a charis-maniac funny-mentalist. I was climbing the leadership ladder, had all the prophecies to back me up, I was teaching from the pulpit and in classrooms, I was a rising star in the local church. I was going to be an apostle, I tell you what. And my dutiful wife was following me all the way. Not that we were into the obedience thing. I recall one story. A group of women were getting together, and my wife was invited. She said "Sure," she'd love to. They all looked at her. They said she needed to come ask me. She replied that I'd be fine with it. No, they said that whether she knew that or not was irrelevant. She needed to be submissive and ask, not tell me what she was going to do. So over she walks, and explains to me what just went down. I was stunned. We have never operated that way, and we didn't then. That's the way they still work. Crunch time came when my wife started having memories of abuse. There were plenty of those coming over to cast out demons, and claim this, that, or the other thing. That didn't help. I was getting confused. Jesus wasn't helping, and for years of course we had heard how evil psychologists and psychiatrists were. Those secular folks would undermine faith even. That's how satanic they were. Only one voice was dissenting in that church, and she told me to take my wife to the hospital. So I did. I went back the next day, armored to the hilt and ready for battle. These secularists were in for a fight with me. So I marched in and in the meeting I had with the doctor and nurse, asked what they were going to do to my wife. The nurse said, "Nothing." Whoa! Hit the brakes! What?! I pay good money for this hospital care, what do you mean nothing? The reality was, I was not prepared for that. They could only offer tools for my wife, and if she chose to use them, she would get better. If not, she wouldn't. Basically, it was my wife's choice. Hmm. More confusion. I wasn't expecting that either. So I laid my cards out on the table, they laid theirs out, and I slowly began to see that I had been lied to. At the very least, mislead. A faith undone by reasoning, was a faith of reasoning to begin with. So I began to look at the church, who now shunned us. The pastor of 13 years didn't show up for a visit. Nor the close friends. Apparently we had done the evil thing. My wife never went back, and after switching churches, I finall stopped going myself. By then I was seeing the pettyness of humans in their religiosity, and little of true power, and a whole lot of emotionalism. As the years have passed I have seen how I disregarded a whole lot of glaring examples of why the bull I was believing in wasn't true. Some were things I said myself! And boy do they sound stupid now. In all this time, the religious jingos have changed little. Maybe a bit more political today than we were on the local scale back then. But believing the same dumb shit and acting even worse. There is no room for gays. How can thatbe? What will win them: outlawing sodomy, which Dr. David Hagar forced his wife into, or loving them unconditionally? And since few are really doing that, I can conclude that the God of the Christian bible is impotent at least, or non-existant. A myth among many. What I do believe in is my fellow man. The ones who take a lot of crap from politicians, but in the end rise up and dispel them in the voting booth. Since the political jingos, henceforth pojings, realize that, we see the chicanery with electronic voting machines. So bravo to Vermont that outlawed the buggers. I had freinds where I live who had to vote three times before the machine recognized the correct candidate. I believe in the community of man. Their diversity, culture, and potential for ultimate realization makes this world a wonderful place. Not all folk are that nice, and usually it is the religious extremists who muck it up for everyone else. But love is bigger than all that. Bigger even than the christian god. They like to claim he is love, but lack any real evidence of that. So it's you and me, and our neighbors. We can solve our problems together, and grow as the human race into what we have the potential to be.
So a bit of a confession, and rambling post as I research PNAC. I need all the facts lined up so I can lay them out for you. Isn't that what telling the truth is all about?
To quote Steppenwolf, "America, where are you now? Your country needs you more than ever...." In flipping through the news this morn, and then hitting the chat rooms attached to those stories, I am amazed at what some people say. Based on the respondents, Christianity is void of love, or kindness of any kind. And having gone over Pat Robertson in prior postings, what of the gospel did we hear from him? Nothing! I don't believe the Bible for good reasons. I used to. I spent 13 years in that quagmire. I was a charis-maniac funny-mentalist. I was climbing the leadership ladder, had all the prophecies to back me up, I was teaching from the pulpit and in classrooms, I was a rising star in the local church. I was going to be an apostle, I tell you what. And my dutiful wife was following me all the way. Not that we were into the obedience thing. I recall one story. A group of women were getting together, and my wife was invited. She said "Sure," she'd love to. They all looked at her. They said she needed to come ask me. She replied that I'd be fine with it. No, they said that whether she knew that or not was irrelevant. She needed to be submissive and ask, not tell me what she was going to do. So over she walks, and explains to me what just went down. I was stunned. We have never operated that way, and we didn't then. That's the way they still work. Crunch time came when my wife started having memories of abuse. There were plenty of those coming over to cast out demons, and claim this, that, or the other thing. That didn't help. I was getting confused. Jesus wasn't helping, and for years of course we had heard how evil psychologists and psychiatrists were. Those secular folks would undermine faith even. That's how satanic they were. Only one voice was dissenting in that church, and she told me to take my wife to the hospital. So I did. I went back the next day, armored to the hilt and ready for battle. These secularists were in for a fight with me. So I marched in and in the meeting I had with the doctor and nurse, asked what they were going to do to my wife. The nurse said, "Nothing." Whoa! Hit the brakes! What?! I pay good money for this hospital care, what do you mean nothing? The reality was, I was not prepared for that. They could only offer tools for my wife, and if she chose to use them, she would get better. If not, she wouldn't. Basically, it was my wife's choice. Hmm. More confusion. I wasn't expecting that either. So I laid my cards out on the table, they laid theirs out, and I slowly began to see that I had been lied to. At the very least, mislead. A faith undone by reasoning, was a faith of reasoning to begin with. So I began to look at the church, who now shunned us. The pastor of 13 years didn't show up for a visit. Nor the close friends. Apparently we had done the evil thing. My wife never went back, and after switching churches, I finall stopped going myself. By then I was seeing the pettyness of humans in their religiosity, and little of true power, and a whole lot of emotionalism. As the years have passed I have seen how I disregarded a whole lot of glaring examples of why the bull I was believing in wasn't true. Some were things I said myself! And boy do they sound stupid now. In all this time, the religious jingos have changed little. Maybe a bit more political today than we were on the local scale back then. But believing the same dumb shit and acting even worse. There is no room for gays. How can thatbe? What will win them: outlawing sodomy, which Dr. David Hagar forced his wife into, or loving them unconditionally? And since few are really doing that, I can conclude that the God of the Christian bible is impotent at least, or non-existant. A myth among many. What I do believe in is my fellow man. The ones who take a lot of crap from politicians, but in the end rise up and dispel them in the voting booth. Since the political jingos, henceforth pojings, realize that, we see the chicanery with electronic voting machines. So bravo to Vermont that outlawed the buggers. I had freinds where I live who had to vote three times before the machine recognized the correct candidate. I believe in the community of man. Their diversity, culture, and potential for ultimate realization makes this world a wonderful place. Not all folk are that nice, and usually it is the religious extremists who muck it up for everyone else. But love is bigger than all that. Bigger even than the christian god. They like to claim he is love, but lack any real evidence of that. So it's you and me, and our neighbors. We can solve our problems together, and grow as the human race into what we have the potential to be.
So a bit of a confession, and rambling post as I research PNAC. I need all the facts lined up so I can lay them out for you. Isn't that what telling the truth is all about?
posted by Gonzo at 07:01
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