A Walk Through Their Scripture
Matthew 10:34-39 quotes Jesus as saying he didn't bring peace, but a sword. He clearly states he will set people against their own family.
Luke 12:49-57 gives a slightly different quote, same statement though.
Exodus 32:25-29 has a real beauty. Moses declares God's command that this group of folks go out and kill brothers, companions and neighbors. When 3,000 are killed at this instruction they are declared to be blessed and ready to enter the priesthood.
And some of these people have the gall to refer to my Goddess as a demon. To say her teachings are evil or dangerous. (Special thanks to Chris P. for grouping those verses together on his blog, saving me some research time.)
A little over a year ago, Arthur B. Roberts posted in response to one of my posts. In it he claimed that all paths could not be true (which I didn't claim) because the Christian teachings and those of the Koran contradict each other to a volatile level. This is true, and many try to sharpen the divide by pointing to some hostile teachings in the Koran. Yet there are some areas here that a lot of the Christians try to ignore in attempting to point the muslims out as the only violent ones. Sure, he quoted verses saying to kill infidels, but hey, how exactly does that stack up with "If you kill your family I will give you a cookie?"
I look at the various sides and I really don't get it. How can either of these camps step up and call me evil? Call my Goddess evil? Seriously? This is an interesting quandary (for me) about life, or something close to it.
Luke 12:49-57 gives a slightly different quote, same statement though.
Exodus 32:25-29 has a real beauty. Moses declares God's command that this group of folks go out and kill brothers, companions and neighbors. When 3,000 are killed at this instruction they are declared to be blessed and ready to enter the priesthood.
And some of these people have the gall to refer to my Goddess as a demon. To say her teachings are evil or dangerous. (Special thanks to Chris P. for grouping those verses together on his blog, saving me some research time.)
A little over a year ago, Arthur B. Roberts posted in response to one of my posts. In it he claimed that all paths could not be true (which I didn't claim) because the Christian teachings and those of the Koran contradict each other to a volatile level. This is true, and many try to sharpen the divide by pointing to some hostile teachings in the Koran. Yet there are some areas here that a lot of the Christians try to ignore in attempting to point the muslims out as the only violent ones. Sure, he quoted verses saying to kill infidels, but hey, how exactly does that stack up with "If you kill your family I will give you a cookie?"
I look at the various sides and I really don't get it. How can either of these camps step up and call me evil? Call my Goddess evil? Seriously? This is an interesting quandary (for me) about life, or something close to it.
posted by Wanderer at 10:05 PM
13 Comments:
IMO the goddess is evil too because she is a notion of religion.
So keep your perspective.
And equally unsupported in actions as the claims of these others. Your opinion that religion is evil does no more provide scenarios in which my Goddess has demonstrated herself to in fact be, than their bias that claims She is evil.
I wasn't planning on tossing away my perspective. I was actually speaking from it.
While more in depth you might be able to enlighten me, I still remain in the dark as to how these people can hold this position.
The speaker at the gardenia center were my hubby and I attend their Sunday Services.
used Matthew 10: 34-39 for part of her sermon.
Her Main topic was "Being Thankful" Not quite sure how it all fits in.
34"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn
" 'a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law -
36a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'[a]
37"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."
Not sure how that touches on thankfulness either.
The reason why your Goddess has not been a factor in the myriad evils of religion I've described before is because you're the only one who perceives her existence.
Even so, I can still show the evil of it. You spend a lot of time and effort working your way through these articles and discussions, meditating and clarifying, and all of that time, effort, energy, and occasionally resources are all going to nought down an empty pipe dream that maybe something fantastic exists so we can all turn our faces away from the garish light of day, instead of all that work and time going to improving the situation in which you find yourself.
It's just like when crack addicts wind up homeless in the street because it's so hard for them to bear their existence, they put all their resources into the one thing that provides an escapist relief, and when it's over, they're worse off than they were before because of the opportunity cost, but they don't care, because whatever is worse about their lives now will soon melt away and rise up in smoke from a spoon.
This is one of the things Marx meant by "opiate of the masses."
There's the evil.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Good points, but I think you singled out the Jews unfairly, they all teach that.
You said what God is about, to you. I ask, what is there that iss about realism and progress?
Mrmanicdepressive stated: "Everyone uses their religion to prove that they're right and you're wrong. The Muslims, the Christians (even amongst themselves), the Jews all think their way is the only way to be in heaven. It's all bullshit invented to make one feel special and chosen Personally, I think God, in whatever form one worships, is all about love, not hate, not killing to obtain righteousness, but we humans tend to screw the pooch on that."
I removed his comment based on the pornographic content of his picture, and the fact that while I am not particularly concerned, some who come here don't want to see that. He is welcome to make his own posts in the future if that picture changes to something more suitable for the publice forum this is. He is also welcome to use the anonymous posting option so as to leave that picture out.
MC - Your presumption, I think, is based on the concept that I look to Her to solve problems for me. A precept that might apply somewhat if the little "dance" problem was solved. (Which reminds me that we have not as yet discussed that subject as promised.)
As it is, I don't use Her as a shield, and the failures that I have, I think, have little to do with that subject. In effect they would be no more likely to be solved without Her.
I do want to make it clear that I don't truly find myself concerned with whether you in particular think Her evil, as you tend to at least put some rational thought behind it. I do think that even with the nature of things as you presented, evil is a bit of a strong word. Too strong, in fact, for an atheist. Wouldn't Her being evil require an active thought process, an active being? Otherwise wouldn't She just be damaging?
A wrecking ball swinging into an oncoming bus laden with passengers is not evil. If She is only a tool or a figment as you indicate, I can see dangerous, destructive, debilitating (all presuming taking your perspective, not agreement), I do not see evil though.
That's like saying Nazism isn't evil because it, as an abstract construct, can't think or act.
I don't have time to post more coherently now, my brother offered mesome free unused tickets to a Bills game and I gotta leave in twenty minutes to make it on time, but I promise a better post is coming soon.
Actually, no further post is coming.
Recent contemplations have led me to a place where I really don't want to discuss things.
I started writing a story about someone who loses his connections one by one and in writing this story, I have begun to feel very, very alone, and so I feel like no matter what I say, it won't make any difference and no one will be interested, because there is, in some context, in some form, some... thing... of which I am not a part.
There are many of these things, which interrelate and interlock like atoms in a molecule, of which I am not a part, and for any thing which I am a part, I get pushed out or left behind because I am not a part of some other things around it.
No one is a part of any thing under my influence.
I am disconnected and confused. There are points recently when the concept of communication seems foreign and artificial to me. Synthetic, forced, and ineffective. Speaking or writing becomes like pounding morse code on the ground with no one in sight and hoping to get lucky, for someone who happens to know morse code to wander into the area, AND notice a faint sound, AND connect what it is, AND translate accurately, AND do the appropriate thing with it.
As I write this, I write it with the feeling that it won't be read. Like shining a laser into the night sky and theorizing that eventually, it may randomly find itself on a direct vector to the eye of some intelligent being who will notice. "One trillionth of one trillionth of a percent is still a chance" sort of mentality. I don't know why I feel this way no as I know it's neither true nor logical, but it's very concrete within me. Right now, IRL, I am speaking to someone, and looking into their eyes, and they into mine, and yet I feel with certainty that they don't realize I'm in this room, in this house, in this town, with them, right now.
I wanted to shout, "Do you realize that I'm RIGHT FUCKING HERE?" but I can't, because that would be insane.
Anyhow, this is why I can't further elaborate now. Because communication doesn't exist in the vacuum in which I find myself. Sound dissipates into empty space with no impact on any surface. Words dissolve into specks of pigment that diffuses into the space around us until it is simply the color of the void.
I haven't got enough bricks to build the bridge I need to get back. I have to make some bricks. That takes time.
I am pained to see this writing here of yours. It is an accident that I see it now, having avoided my blog, but merely checking to see if the link that I created on my sister's blog to my own works.
Now, at this point more than ever, I am at a loss seeing your writing putting you at a similar point. For I am lost. At times like this you have been my one constant. You are the one who is rooted in reality and unwilling to allow me to travel too far from it.
So I have two constants. One I have opposed as much as reached towards, and one who has been steadfast in standing before me and making the differentiation necessary in regards to the above mentioned extremes.
It would be too much weight to put on you to complain about your wavering in front of me, when in fact even you recently pointed out again that I have failed to pay the deposit I should have paid in order to continue to rely on you.
I am lost. This will not change. Why the hell do you still associate yourself with this sinking ship after all of these years?
I can think of three distinct reasons. Firstly, your ship can never sink with as much support as it has from so many sources. Secondly because even if it does eventually sink, it won't pull me down with it. And thirdly, because even if it were sinking, I would glady voluntarily swim down after it to pull my brother from it.
I must admit I don't really know how a reasonable person would interpret everything I wrote in my last comment. I'm not even sure what I meant anymore, or, more accurately, I know what I meant but I don't see how it was exactly that I felt the words I offered would illustrate that. I can't even work backwards from what I wrote to what I meant, even knowing what it was.
I'm not wavering in front of anything. The US Army couldn't make me, so surely your weight can't.
Even though I feel you are misguided, I would confront anyone who said you were evil. Even though I feel you're manufacturing answers, I would confront anyone who said they didn't.
Even though you have made me feel negative emotions on certain occasions more than almost anyone else, I would combat anyone who said I wasn't better for it.
So every time you come up with a new fairy tale, or I insist that neither you nor oxygen can be real cause I can't see either of you, it will be like muscle ripping under weights, only to recover stronger, and not like strands fraying from a rope.
I learned how to be who I am from you. I'm not you, and I'm not like you in a lot of ways, but change between the kid I was when I was 15 and the man I was at 20 was all because of you, in one way or another.
And I suspect that in some ways who you were at 18 is different than who you were at 23 because of me.
That is not the kind of thing that comes from casual acquaintance, where I'd get out of the way at the slightest hint of effort or resistance like I do with my women. That's a bond, and the kind of bond that doesn't get weaker.
You're my brother, and I love you. You can still count on me.
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