The Only (I think?) Anti-Christian/Anti-Jewish post I'll ever make

[hkellick]

A bunch of people are making long ass poses discussing their spirituality. And after a long and interesting discussion with ecwoodburn about religion, I feel the need to vent my own soul too.

However, not so terribly long ago, I already wrote up my spiritual past and I won't get back into it again.
However, after reading some of your entries and definately after talking with ecwoodburn, I am now going to explain why I could never go back to Judaism or step into Christianity.

And so, onto the Anti-Christianity/Anti-Judaism portion.
Why I could never be Christian or Jewish
1) I don't believe in your god.
2) I don't like most of your fellow church/templegoers.

Let's explore these more in depths.
On God
One of the main tenets of major religions is that god is just, all-knowing, all-loving, forgiving etc.
Of course, the obvious questions like "How can God allow XXX to occur?" can't be answered.
This life, this world, is filled with tragedies, mostly small-scaled, but some large-scaled.
The Holocaust, 9/11, Terrible fires, floods, deaths, wars, rapes, abuse.
People robbed of all their savings by money-hungry corporations, children abused by clergy, kids fighting an unjust war shot to death while buying CDs.
God has allowed all of it. To be honest, it's so prevalent in today's society that we've become desensitized to some of it. It's become so prevalent we ceased to be shocked when we see a woman get raped on TV, stories of children trapped in cars in 90 degree weather etc.
How can an all-knowing and all-good God ALLOW for these things to happen?
I think that's the major turning point for all people. At some point, all people of all major religions have to turn to their peers, their clergy, their parents and ask "How could god/gods/etc. allow this to happen?" And either you lose faith or you don't.
An interesting theory I've heard kicked around in the past few years is that "Yes, god allows this to happen. He allows this to happen so that you can become a better person from it, to learn and grow."
But I don't believe that for a second. The people with this belief are trying to mollify their own and their peers troubled soul because so much of what goes on today, there's nothing to learn from.
What are you supposed to learn from being raped?
What are you supposed to learn from having your child taken from you when some bastard takes an airplane and wraps it around a skyscraper?
And do any of these lessons truly compare to the lessons you may have learned if these tragedies, small and large scale alike, didn't occur?
If any of you truly have faith in the JudeoChristianMuslim God and can answer for him, by all means go ahead.
Explain to me why God allows these things to happen.

I was talking to dawnstar yesterday and one of the things I said is that the only good thing I can say about my father is that I'm a better person because of, or perhaps despite him. And she and coderlemming both asked "How do you really know?"
And I can't answer.
How do I know I'm a better man for having a father as terrible as mine was compared to no father at all or, completely differently, a good father? I don't. I can't. There is no way to answer that question because I don't have the power to run a controlled experiment contrasting me as I am now with a me who had no father or me with had a good father.
The only one with that sort of capability would be God.
And here's where I bring the point around.
How can you really say that your life is better for living through the tragedies and the terribleness that life can bring?
Is it truly divine will? Some ineffable plan? Or is God a fucking bastard with a nasty sense of humor and a terribly nasty streak.
Let's see what the Bible, another major tenet has to say about that.
Well well well... according to the old testament at least, it looks like God's a fucking bastard: mass killings (Story of Noah's Ark anyone?), countlessly testing his people to see if they love him (Sacrifice of Isaac), destroying anyone who didn't believe in him, despite the fact that supposedly he created them all.
According to Christian theology, anyone who doesn't believe in him (keeping in mind that he created everyone), goes to hell to suffer eternal torment.
This doesn't sound like the works of a just, all-knowing, all-loving etc. God to me.
And this is why I can never turn back to God.

Editted: - Yes, upon talking with others and listening to the comments, I am now going to edit this post.
Followers
And with the Segue, let's get into y'all (and when I say y'all, I don't really mean those of you reading this, since most of you are generally more enlightened than the common mass)
The editting begins with this.. if I'm going to be fair, I don't know too many christians. Those that I do know (and you know you are), I don't consider to be a fair crosssection of the main populace. Maybe that's an unfair assumption, but given that I have more negative experiences with christians than positives ones, it's all I have to work with.
To me, the epitome of the Bad Christian (and unfortunately the stereotype of what a "good christian" is supposed to be in America) is currently running our country. He fights because he is morally right and god speaks to him daily to tell him so.
How I define a Bad Christian are these right wing extremists (and it seems like there are an awful lot of them making asses of themselves in all sorts of ways) who don't actually follow what Jesus himself wrote. You know these people when you see them. They're the ones who feel prayer belongs in schools, that homosexuality is evil, that harry potter is evil and any host of small-minded and stupid thoughts. Worse yet, and the thought that has always bothered me the most is that any nonbelieves of christ are doomed to hell. Which, as dustkitten pointed out, Jesus never said.
These people seem to be everywhere. They made big asses of themselves when Williamsville School District tried to put some distance between themselves and Christmas. They're all over the news, especially in politics. They even occasionally come onto MU**s to convert people.
Alot of evil has happened in the name of christianity. In truth, alot of good probably has too, but (again, this part is editted), to be fair, I don't know of much of it.
I can not believe for a second that Jesus Christ would ever have stood for using his name as you marches across the holy lands in the Medieval Ages and took it from those living there. He'd have turned in his grave as people used his name to support unjust and terrible actions against people.
(Edit Finished)

These two reasons are why I could never turn back to these monotheistic religions, especially any religion that believes in an all-good, all-knowing god. And I plainly refuse to ever bow my knee to any bastard that could allow the things that happen to happen. Ever.
And now you know.

I'll leave comments on. If you want to argue with me, flame me, tell me I'm a stupidhead moron who should shut up and never talk again, you may do so.
Though I reserve the rights to delete any comments that are too abusive.

Back to work.

Comments

[phoenixsong]

I think that whatever Divine Force is running the universe DOES speak to us, trying to teach us from small good things, every single day. The problem is, if you allow yourself to be desensitized to violence, you also are more likely to dismiss these small goodnesses as flukes, accidents.

In my belief system, the big bad things happen when large groups of people ignore the small good things. "If you're not going to listen to Me, and use your free will to appreciate and act upon the good things in your life, I don't really have much choice but to send something bigger that will get your attention."

And don't try to tell me this is just a JudeoChristianMuslim belief. I'm pretty sure at least some pagan theology follows the same logic. Mt. Vesuvius destroying Pompeii was probably seen as an act of the gods. There are probably lots of other examples from mythology that are escaping me at the moment.

You point to Noah's Ark as an Old Testament example that the JCM God is a bastard (and I hope those reading will forgive my abreviation). I can think of some others, too. The plagues in Egypt. The Hebrews having to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. Exile to Babylon. You know what? Each of these was immediately preceeded by God showing great kindness to His people, and His people turning around and saying, in pride, "Ah, all our good fortune is due to our own power and supremacy, we don't need no stinkin' Jehovah!" God then would send prophets to warn the people that their pride was going to their heads, that they should thank God for their blessings. The prophets were ignored, the people went on in their pride since things were still pretty good. BANG! God loses His temper and punishes them.

According to the Torah, this went on for at least a thousand years. And you know, in the 2500 or so years since the end of the Torah/Old Testament, people haven't changed all that much. Christianity started out trying to change that, but as soon as it changed from a faith to an institution (around 300 C.E.), the institution reverted right back to the same mindset: "We're God's elect, screw you all! Oh wait, why does such terrible stuff happen to us? Gee, it can't be because we're messing up, so it must be because of all the other horrible people who don't believe in our God!" (BS logic, if I do say so.)

BTW, the people who go door-to-door are generally Mormons, aka The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This is a completely different form of Christianity from both most Protestant sects, and Roman Catholicism, not to mention the actual teachings of Christ. If you expect anyone to give your arguments credence, love, you need to quit lumping all people who revere Jesus the Nazorean in a religious context together. Catholics would be rather offended by being lumped together with Mormons or born-again Christians, Protestants resent being lumped with "those Popish Mary-worshipers," and born-agains generally look down their nose at anyone who isn't born-again but still claims to be Christian. (If you want to go with devout stereotypes, that is.)

[lite.livejournal.com]

Except for a few details, most of what I've said, at least about God, applies to Christians of all faiths.
Admittedly, I don't know too much about the different sects of Christianity.
I'm trying to steer the argument away from stereotypes because I can't argue stereotypes intelligently as I'll sound like an ass.
My argument concerning the followers of CHrist is currently that while I concede that some are good worshippers, my own experiences with Christians has been generally more negative than positive. I know a few good christians but I've been annoyed and harassed, in person and those institution I support by loud, annoying christians.
Maybe it's an unfair fact of humanity, but we tend to remember the bad over the good and as such, these people have left a bad taste in my mouth regarding christians in general.

I won't argue the Torah with you, but consider the following scenario. I go up to you one day and tell you that if you don't start.. watching football, then I'm going to punish you, would you do it?
Chances are pretty high you wouldn't. You've never done it before and you see no reason to start now.
God sent those prophets down knowing full well that he was going to end up punishing the Egyptians or Romans or what not. (Especially if you keep in mind that god is, in fact, all-knowing)
It's an unfair test and he knew it. So how is this something a fair and just and good god should be doing?
Another perfect example.
One might say all evil stems because in the Garden of Eden, Eve went and ate the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (or whatever it was called.).
But before that, God had created this tree and planted it in the Garden of Eden and created Serpents who, apparently, were terrible evil tempters and created a burning sense of curiosity that has plagued men for years.
THEN said "Whatever you do, don't do this."
Another unfair test.

You bring up Pagan religions. The major difference between Pagan and JCM is that JCM claims their god is all-knowing, just etc.. whereas Pagans never did. Take a look at any theology and you'll see gods as jealous, small-minded and otherwise silly as the people who worshipped them. That's the sort of god I can believe in, one who makes the same sorts of mistakes we do.

[phoenixsong]

OK, I'll give you a point on the last bit. At least in the mythology we're fed in grade school, yes, gods were small and petty. Frankly, and this is just my opinion, if whatever Divine Force that's running the universe is really like that, then I'd have a harder time honoring it. To me, those aren't god(s), those are just people with superpowers. And if I'm going to worship anything, it's not going to be another human being who is just as failable as I.

On the other hand, another thing to remember is the books in the Bible? They were written long after the original events, so of course the author, God-inspired or not, is going to want to paint God as knowing more than mere people in order to convince other people that this Jehovah fellow is worth worshiping. So they make him out to be not only all-knowing, but all-powerful, too, and making the people seem to be silly and without free will -- i.e., all the times the Bible says something like "God sent his prophets to warn his people, blah blah, but God hardened the hearts of the people so that they would not hear."

God didn't write a single word down. Neither, for that matter, did Jesus. The words and actions attributed to them were written down anywhere from 30 to 2000-3000 years after the fact. Human oral tradition and human memory are terribly fragile things. Even if those who wrote the stories down were "inspired" by God, got the words directly from Him...do you really think "God" is going to say "Yeah, I tried to convince them to follow me, but they liked other gods better. So I beat them up like a schoolyard bully because I couldn't handle rejection"? No way.

[lite.livejournal.com]

And here we get into semantics.

You suggest above that god may not be all-knowing, or all-powerful. That perhaps those who wrote the testaments, both old and new, may have embellished it slightly to show how superior their god was.

How is that different from a pagan god? Knowing that possibly the authors of the new and old testaments may have made him out to be a little more than he was, how can you be sure Jehova and Jesus ARE any more than a man like me but with superpowers?

And, of course, if he is (and I suggest he is, and as far as I can tell, UU does too. It suggests that all mythologies have a kernel of truth in them and that the truth is somewhere between all the various mythologies), your mythology is no more valid than my own.

[phoenixsong]

OK, if you're asking me personally, then my answer would have to be, that's why I think I, personally, am having such a hard time figuring out where my spirituality is. I've had many, many experiences that, to my mind, indicate that there is indeed a Higher Power out there. What I said in my first paragraph two levels up, that's my personal view, and others can take it or leave it. My experience, logical or illogical, says there's some force outside of myself that, when my life seemed like it was at the absolute worst, suddenly everything came back together.

Do I know what to call this Force? Nope. Not a clue right now. "God" has become something of a shorthand that I use, not entirely adequate. But, I do have faith that this Force does indeed exist. And since this force is intangible to my perception via physical sense, but is something I seem to connect with on a spiritual/energy level, I label it as being "god-like" rather than something due to the actions of any human, including myself.

The above are strictly my views, not my speaking on behalf of any other individual or group.

I guess what it boils down to is this: I can accept someone not wanting to be part of a faith where the doctrine is vastly different from what they believe or perceive. But don't tell me you (specific or non-specific) don't want to participate in organized religion only because of the raving lunatics. There are raving lunatics and extremists associated with just about every faith on this planet, and they've existed pretty much since the beginning of organized religion. The only difference is that now, in the age of mass media, the person or family who might have been quietly shunned by the rest of a small community -- someone everyone living there knew was there, but certainly didn't represent the views of the rest of the community and everyone knew that, too -- is now the guy who gets all the airtime on national news, with only a few "human interest" soundbytes by one or two neighbors. I don't believe the actual proportions are any different, just the attention paid to the lunatics for the sake of ratings.

[lite.livejournal.com]

For lack of a better word, I usually call that Divine Force "God" too. I think that this Divine Spark is in each and every one of us (and everything else too) and can act through us. I don't know where Fate and/or Free Will come into the equation, but they do somehow.

Keep in mind that the majority of the post was actually dominated by why I can't believe in the JCM god more than why the loonies bother me. I still stick by these thoughts.
My whole point to the majority of this post was why I can't believe in the JCM ideal of who God is. It doesn't jive with the realities of the world as I see it.

I guess I'm a little bit more put off by Christianity in general because, perhaps, of how vocal (and how, at times, omnipresent) your loonies seem to be. I agree that they're in every state, every religion, every population of any sort, but I've had more bad experience with Christian loonies than any other sort.