Defender of the Faith
Since this was described elsewhere as “fucking brilliant” I figured I’d tack it up here for ya’ll to enjoy. After hearing one of our members is turning away from Christianity, due in part to his involvement and exposure to NYRA, I provided this brief defense of the faith I love:
Jesus’ whole point was that the spirit of the law - love, was far more important than the law itself. His career was one of pointing out and challenging hypocrites. Christianity is not a religion of literalism, its one of faith. Fundamentalists and such that ignore the teachings of Jesus and instead try to literally apply Old Testiment stuff (without understanding it) are like some ill-informed neo-Orthodox Jewish group with a few superficial Christian symbols thrown in.
Don’t let retards like them ruin the most beautiful religion out there. Jesus was the original hippie. He hung out with prostitutes, the poor, the diseased, the people society rejected and scorned. His ministry was to show that these people had worth, and *gasp* were in fact equal in God’s eyes to all those hypocritical priests in the Temple. Christianity is an inclusive, egalitarian religion. One with respect for all mankind.
Don’t let anyone ruin that in your mind. Love is still a virtue worth cherishing above all.
Me fucking brilliant? Meh, your call. Jesus sure was though.
May 18th, 2005 at 8:46 am
“Christianity is not a religion of literalism, its one of faith”
That I believe whole-heartedly,and have to defend quite often. Many people believe that Catholics worship saints, or the pope, as well as that none of us believe in evolution. The only part I wasn’t too keen on was the comparison of fundementalists to Orthodox Jews ( albiet ill-informed ones), though I might be interpreting that wrong. . . (probably am)I’d also be interested how this person’s beliefs changed through interaction with the NYRA. . .was it more through the interactions from individuals on the site, or more from the basic principles of the organization ( youth rights, civil liberties, etc ) hmm,. . .maybe I should just read the posts. . .der.
May 21st, 2005 at 11:49 am
It wasn’t through the organization itself, but because of his interactions with the people in NYRA. Sadly most of the membership (on the forums at least) are athiest and quite hostile to Christianity (not hostile to other religions really, athiests just hate Christianity for some reason). So because of their influence he has really started to turn away from his faith.
As for the Orthodox Jews thing, I just threw that in because their deal is to observe all the laws of the Old Testiment. By definition of course they don’t pay any attention to the New Testiment. A lot of the fundamentalist Christians seem to ignore most of the teachings of Jesus in much the same way and spend their time trying to enforce Old Testiment rules on people (just the ones they want to of course).
The focus of God in the OT is more on the Law, and justice and such, whereas the focus on the NT is on love, compassion & forgiveness. So the God that the conservative Christians focus on is one purely concerned with the Law, and thus in my mind, more an OT depiction.
May 23rd, 2005 at 6:30 pm
people concerned about civil rights shouldn’t use perjorative names about another disadvantages class. calling another group “retards” doesn’t validate your argument at all.