Reply #30: Look at japanese religious beliefs for a moment

[SomewhereOutThere424]

They identify suicide, self persecution, pain for their cause, death in battle, etc, to be the greatest cause. It's like feeling spiritual self worth, you suffer because you know you did something honorable for the cause you believe in.

Christians share a similar commeraderie to that, the belief system of christianity ties into the necessity of martyrdom, to 'suffer for righteousness'. In my old church (yes I am a former christian of ten years into it, glad I'm not anymore, not because I think it's a demonized religion, simply that it didn't suit me), there was a popular phrase: "if you're not sufferin' enough, somethin's wrong with ya' and it would be met with applaud, sometimes laughter.

They want bad things to happen to them, and the mentality of many extremist christians have is the same as the guy who walks awkwardly in the road to be hit by a car so he can sue the driver. According to many christians, god is a being who loves it when you suffer for no good reason. They play it off as a blessing of sorts, and so to cry that they're being persecuted is more or less their need of being persecuted not being met.

Look at fred phelps (the bastard visiting the next town from me in two days, joy -.- any advice on what to do with 'im?). He doesn't just tote god hates fags anymore. He's toting god hates US soldiers in iraq. It's clearly obvious that he's going to be given a lot of guff for that -- and it's what he wants. He's purposely sticking his neck out in a way he can religiously justify, so that he can turn around and call it the karmatic browny points for suffering 'unjustly' or suffering 'for god's will'.

So it's similar to the way that other oriental including japanese religious mentalities tie into this. They want a cause to be martyred by, to the point they're cooking up this martyrdom in their mind. Either taking regular comments too far, or imagining that people are simply thinking bad of them, so they're persecuted for righteousness sake.

To clarify this post though, I do not think ill of christians. I think ill of the religious psychopaths who demonize the world around them including certain animal figures, certain religions and their religious icons, certain races, certain countries, and certain viewpoints. I think that the necessity to suffer for righteousness sake is actually the root reason that many of these overly fanatic religious nuts are born. What needs to be done is someone to give a clear headed opinion of what the bible means in church. Not to take it ten stories too far and teach their church these things. I've seen too many pastors simply reciting what their pastors before them taught, and claiming it's god's will. I think that the root problem is this religious game of telephone coming from a bible more and more individuals refuse to read.

Only in one chapter does it ever express that god has any problems with gay people. Infact, it never specifically says gay people, it says god does not like sodomy (or, the term they'd used back then for it). I don't recall ever once seeing god hates gay people, only specific instances where gay people are given a bad rap or a bad analogy.

In a few chapters it compares wolves to bad creatures, but jesus (or those who spoke them) were clearly speaking from a shephard's point of view as that was the entire comparison. If you are a shephard, you can't invite wolves into your flock, regardless how you think of them. Yet jesus also pointed out that it's best to love your neighbor as you love yourself and said that god's creatures were all very important. Again, blowing something out of proportion from a very sheltered view. No one who reads the bible and says wolves are evil has ever had any practice as a shephard nowadays, and it should be discerned for what it is.

As a personal matter of fact, king david himself loved men. They never outright called him homosexual, but before he became this glorious king, there is a distinct passage stating 'your love exceeds that of a woman's love' expressing his love for another boy of whom he'd loved, where he even gives him a kiss. I wouldn't think god to be the type to put someone into a strong power, yet hating them at the same time.

King solomon as a matter of fact experimented. He, instead of brandishing pagan ideals as evil, experimented with some and found he liked some. Then the eletist purist types of religious wing nuts of those time had it all torn down after his death and went on about how evil solomon was. Yeah, solomon wasn't that great in some fields, but I think justifying who he was to demonize his religion is along the same lines of saying christianity is bad because bush is bad, so in that extent, even some of this pagan bashing went too far and is simply a matter of dislike for an individual, not a whole, which turned into religious radical expression.

Now let's look away for the bible a moment. What is st patrick's day celebrating? Who were these snakes? Celts, pagans, those who worshipped 'strange gods'. It was because of the ten commandments that many people were coerced into converting their faith, or dying. They were murdered by this man who is celebrated even in the united states, yet I haven't in a long time heard of pagans speaking out because they feel persecuted. Infact, bush personally said he does not recognize those in the pagan wiccan faith as american citizens.

The way I see it, christians owe an apology, not vice versa. There was an email I saw on the topic of the ten commandments being put into government areas. "I would like to ask those who defend the right to put the ten commandments up if they would so avidly defend the right to erect monuments in praise of those who have died in the name of religious intolerance". It speaks a lot for my point of view of this 'christians are being persecuted' thing. I haven't necessarily heard many christians apologizing for the witch hunts which founded this country.

Just my two cents anyway, and I'd rather post it here than in that black hole topic that's similar.