"Camping's PR aide, Tom Evans, told the L.A. Times that the group is "disappointed" that 200 million true believers weren't lifted up to heaven on Saturday while everyone else suffered and eventually died as a series of earthquakes and famine destroyed the Earth."Don't you wonder about the sort of people who would be disappointed about something so catastrophic not happening? I don't particularly care for these fundies, but I don't want them to die or anything. *sigh*
The sad part is, there are some really gullible people in the world. Many people quit their jobs, spent their retirement and all their savings, and for what? For something that any rational person should realize is not happening.
If people would focus more on the here and now, rather than on some afterlife, or god, or whatever, the world would be a better place. If these people had spent all the money they did on feeding the hungry, or helping homeless veterans, etc., how much more good would that have done. The dogma that faith is more important than works is something that evangelicals should re-examine. That of course would require them to actually read the New Testament and listen to what Jesus and his followers supposedly said.
"What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead." James 2:14-17
Why is a pagan like me having to quote the bible for these people? Shouldn't they know this? Apparently not.
i think these people want the world to end, because they're so damned miserable. of course, they are, because their main focus is always on what or whom to hate.
ReplyDeleteI think it must be the dogma that god is destructive and hates everyone. I mean, the whole theology of Christian evangelicalism is that we're all dirty sinners and need an outside influence, in this case Jesus dying, to wipe the sins out. I mean, how fucked up is that?
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, it assigns guilt without cause, and second of all, unlike some eastern philosophies where what we go through is a result of something we did (either in this life or a past one), and we can atone for said acts, in the case of evangelical Christianity, there is nothing you as a person can do. That leaves you feeling both worthless and helpless. You're guilty, and you're fucked unless you believe in their sky god. That's a really twisted sort of belief system isn't it? I feel sorry for anyone who believes it.
The part I object to is the fact that they need to take all us disinterested folk with them. The whole premise of the rapture being this sort of theological cleansing [like an ethnic cleansing and it might be that too depending on the church} smacks of [mass] human sacrifice.
ReplyDeleteIt's one thing when teh crazies all go on a hill to wait for the comet and drink rat poison, it's another entirely when they seek to take the rest of us with them without knowledge or consent. And in this case, it's the thought that counts.
Of course this is the same mindset driving conservative politics. I mean why worry about climate change, pollution, or overpopulation if you are convinced that the end is nigh anyhow.
Forward thinking would be unecessary.
And most conservative politicians and their blue dog counterparts certainly illustrate that daily.