![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Religious whatnot that makes me crazy
Sep. 27th, 2006 12:53 pm( Warning: atheist ranting ahead. Skip it if you don't want to read it. )
Whew.
I think I'm done for now.
Whew.
I think I'm done for now.
Sep. 27th, 2006
I was just looking at my "manage friends" page for an unrelated reason, and noticed that I had been defriended by three or four people.
This makes me very, very sad, because they were all people whose journals I have really enjoyed reading, even if I didn't comment as much as I wanted to. And people I really enjoy "knowing", being that they're all good, loving people who *live* their beliefs, instead of making a big deal out of them... precisely the ones I was NOT ranting about.
So I wanted to clarify a little. When I rant about religion, it's not the people who practice what I would see as "true" Christianity that I rant about. To me, a "true" Christian is one for whom the new testament is the most important. As I read it, it's about loving others, and helping others, and living a purposeful, meaningful life, without shouting "I'm better than you because I'm SAVED" to the rest of the world. They aren't the ones who picket the funerals of gay men because of an out-of-context quote of the Old Testament (which, after all, Christ came to supplant), or who insist that everyone in the country must also follow their beliefs, or who generally make their *religion* the center of their lives, instead of their *faith*. Yes, I have some problems with some of the basics of Christianity -- namely, the coexistence of free will and some kind of eternal Plan -- but I'd much rather be sat down and talked to about why it makes sense -- even if it doesn't make sense to me -- than to lose friends over it.
Please understand, if you are able to read this, that I did not intend to push any of you away with my words. I miss you, and I sincerely apologize if I was hurtful. I did not intend to be so to anyone on my friends list, since I do choose to friend people back after reading a few of their entries, so I can just as easily not friend someone who I know I will offend (if that makes any sense). I don't think that any of the Christians on my friends list fall into the categories I was ranting about. I just want to stress that I don't have any problem with Christians in general -- the ones for whom their faith is important, even life-encompassing, without finding it necessary to coerce others into their religion -- but with hypocrisy and with beliefs that don't (at least to me) make any theological sense. If you can explain them to me, please do! I would be more than happy to try to understand! And if I offended you, especially enough to make you defriend me, please know that it wasn't intentional, and I am mortified that I have done so.
This makes me very, very sad, because they were all people whose journals I have really enjoyed reading, even if I didn't comment as much as I wanted to. And people I really enjoy "knowing", being that they're all good, loving people who *live* their beliefs, instead of making a big deal out of them... precisely the ones I was NOT ranting about.
So I wanted to clarify a little. When I rant about religion, it's not the people who practice what I would see as "true" Christianity that I rant about. To me, a "true" Christian is one for whom the new testament is the most important. As I read it, it's about loving others, and helping others, and living a purposeful, meaningful life, without shouting "I'm better than you because I'm SAVED" to the rest of the world. They aren't the ones who picket the funerals of gay men because of an out-of-context quote of the Old Testament (which, after all, Christ came to supplant), or who insist that everyone in the country must also follow their beliefs, or who generally make their *religion* the center of their lives, instead of their *faith*. Yes, I have some problems with some of the basics of Christianity -- namely, the coexistence of free will and some kind of eternal Plan -- but I'd much rather be sat down and talked to about why it makes sense -- even if it doesn't make sense to me -- than to lose friends over it.
Please understand, if you are able to read this, that I did not intend to push any of you away with my words. I miss you, and I sincerely apologize if I was hurtful. I did not intend to be so to anyone on my friends list, since I do choose to friend people back after reading a few of their entries, so I can just as easily not friend someone who I know I will offend (if that makes any sense). I don't think that any of the Christians on my friends list fall into the categories I was ranting about. I just want to stress that I don't have any problem with Christians in general -- the ones for whom their faith is important, even life-encompassing, without finding it necessary to coerce others into their religion -- but with hypocrisy and with beliefs that don't (at least to me) make any theological sense. If you can explain them to me, please do! I would be more than happy to try to understand! And if I offended you, especially enough to make you defriend me, please know that it wasn't intentional, and I am mortified that I have done so.
