“My point was simply – the church (which is described in women’s terms) is married to 3 suitors – Jesus, gov’t, and business (economy). Thus the reason the church doesn’t represent what we read – have to satisfy more than one suitor will do that.
Ironic thing, the church represent’s the agenda of men, even though it is always described metaphorically as a woman. I find that odd.”
Lifted my comment from Chris Ledgerwood’s blog ‘Christianity Isn’t About That Is It?’
This week I watched a 3 part documentray called ‘Choice: Then and Now’ by Dorothy Fadiman. The documentary was about the history of abortion in America with it’s current progression up to 2009 (with live stories and interviews from people along the way).
I am kind of amazed at the religious hatred for this issue. Since 1977 there have been a documented 150,000+ incidents involving abortion doctors and clinics…with the latest being in 2009 with a doctor being shot while at a church service (ie Lutheran). It is becoming crystal clear that if you are supporting anti abortion issues you may as well be helping the more than 100,000’s of people that are committing acts of violence in the name of their faith (God).
I will not be part and parcel to hate speech, murder, arson, terrorism, or other acts of violence that all betray the most basic teaching of my faith ‘treat others how you want to be treated ‘ or ‘love your neighbor as you love yourself’. I love myself not enough to support this garbage and I do care about my neighbor, which includes women who have to make the choice to abort – which for many – is not neccesarily how they want it to be themselves.
Women need to be allowed to have a voice in this society and safe abortion processes need to be on that docket of choices. I am personally opposed to abortion in my personal life, but not enough to think my right outweighs a womans right. So, I support the right for women to have the choice to have a safe abortion if this is needed in their personal life. I could not live with my conscience if I backed an endeavour that would result in women finding another way to abort – risking their lives and serious bodily harm.
I had more time to think on this issue and why some people are calling Capitalism ‘evil’ (including me now). Because at it’s core is nothing but greed.
Think about this, we live with an economic system that really has no plan. In fact in the latest crisis (ie: recession) people were struggling to figure out why banks bet against their own consumers in a derivative schematic. In fact, ‘what were derivatives’ was the question on most lips. The system imploded from the weight of corruption, the people who paid were not neccesarily the same one’s that ‘bent the rules’. I mean…is that a plan?
Or how about the fact the way capitalism functions is meant to help the wealth of the whole nation end up in the hands of 1% of that nation. The system seems to be created to derive you and I of our meaning and wealth in this society so we can live a a pace they determine is adequate. Meanwhile, those with money are those that can decide how they live and on how much of your hard earned cash/value. Was this planned?
Or that the system takes more from you than it can ever possibly give – making you a commodity. In fact humanity is traded daily in the economic system and we have classes of people with this much worth (rich), some with this worth (middle class), and many with this worth (poor). Depending on where you are in the class system also depends on how much you support the system and work for ‘it’. In fact, you don’t work for yourself anymore and you haven’t for years – 100’s of years. Was the taking of human freedom/choice planned?
This system is robbing you and making you think it loves you; it’s like a two-timing Don Juan. It’s slowly eating all the resources of the land while we play in the mire of the scraps they drop down. We are pawns in a bigger end game, we are being used for being useful, but in fact we own nothing.
Do you own your own water supply? Do you own your own energy supply? Do you make you own food? Do you make your own clothes? Do you have a job that explictly works for the benefit of you and your family? What do you really do? Did you build your house and own it outright – or did you pay for lumber?
And that which we begin to own gets bought by the ‘unplanned’ machine called the economy to become part of it…thus us losing another invention for the benefit of humanity. In the end you become so self-reliant on what that machine offers you don’t know what you yourself offer anymore…it’s a type of mental slavery really. But we may be the lucky one’s, since this machine also promotes real slavery and utter poverty and destruction in countries without democracies. We choose to hand our freedoms over.
Finished reading some of Early Christian Writings – a collection of works that seem to go from about 120 CE to about early 300 CE. Containing the works (letters) of the Didache, Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Barnabas, and Justin Martyr. Some things seem clear from that time:
(a) By at least 120 CE, they believed in a Trinity
(b) By 120 CE and after, the bigotry towards the Jews was an adamant thing
(c) There was an atonement theory that seemed to discuss the remission of sins (ie: via the blood)
(d) They had an early community rule (ie: Didache) and a system of leadership in each area (and they demanded full submission to that order)
(e) They were being persecuted in a variety of places for their belief in this new system of beliefs (ie: Christianity) – some of the earliest letters reveal this problem
It still leaves me with the same questions I always have.
They are confused at times with regards to rules and codes of conduct, they blatantly bash the laws in Judaism and then they go and use them in some convoluted way. They knew there was a need for a code of conduct for their faith but they deliver a message that ends in a conundrum, should they are shouldn’t they use the Tanakh?
They have a trinitarian idea, which was a sour one and they bash it off of Judaism to prove that faith is ‘wrong’…yet they use their books to prove the theory. As for the atonement, it’s not crystal clear, and one could say the messiah allowed in the Gentiles to the same access as the Jews…and all the blood did was allow this way. There is some usurption in the early church about which faith is right (ie: Christianity vs. Judaism).
However, they did have standards they lived by that did fly in the face of their current society…and they were definitely not capitalists since they teach against the use of money for personal riches and to be shared with society (namely to the poor and widows). They adamantly want people to follow their leaders like they follow Christ, makes sense, there were movements to change the gospel to various ideologies (proving their need for a community rule). The ethics seem applaudable and were seeking to change society to something more balanced.
For me it shows an early church trying to make it’s mark in a century of variable ideologies (both ethically and theologically). It also shows a church that was trying to be more ethical than it’s surroundings and not being swallowed up by them.
I wonder, how come Christianity is losing this touch?
Had a chance to watch the doc ‘The Age of Stupid’…kind of plays into my last blog on Capitalism (except this show is about Global Warming – but it’s sooooo cause and effect).
The issue of global warming is really something that doesn’t get much attention where I live – in that it never makes the news. However it is getting quite clear the weather patterns are being affected by this phenomenon – 99% of scientists are pretty sure about this ‘warming’ (which is enough to convince me).
I also have been watching the weather patterns locally and in the last 10 years weather has been changing that I have also observed. This year has been pretty poignant to be honest. Locally we had snow fall before the leaves on the tree’s fell (Fall is disappearing). Then in Spring, the snow melted in 2-3 days with some crazy +20 temperatures (we seem to be losing Spring as well). This followed by a month and 1/2 of cloudy days (in the sunniest places in Canada). Then to top it off, we had 9 places flood in approximately a month and a level 3 tornado rip through (which is odd since we haven’t had a tornado of that calibre in some 90 years). Needless to say, the average person can see something is changing.
The Age of Stupid talks clearly about this weather phenomenon and stuff like floods and extreme weather (even the mixing up of the 4 seasons). Most of this falls at the feet of the energy crisis and the problems it is playing, mainly in the last 50 years or so. The rush for oil also seems like the rush for our own demise. I guess, like the show, I find that sad since we knew we could change things and decided to sit back. One man from New Orleans called it the ‘Age of Ignorance’…but I think it’s just an age of ‘Greed’ (where money means more than humanity’s safety).
60% of people don’t think global warming is real, can’t blame them, not like the news media is giving this problem much press. People in this age are quite enthralled by the TV and what it has to say – from news to advertising – humanity in the West is taking it’s cues from propaganda and not what they can observe and study (it’s pretty easy to watch tv than it is to read a book). But this is sad to because when that 60% wake up this earth will have been ravaged by the weather patterns.
I personally think we won’t wake up and address this problem on any mass scale. We’ll slowly march to our own demise as a planet as we pretend to think our luxurious lifestyles didn’t come with a ‘price’. This all seems so Tanakh prophetic to me for some reason, like we can forecast our own doom, warn people of their ignorance, they still don’t care, and the masses pay for the ignorance. Except this time, for the first time in history, this actually is global. So the prophecy is for everyone, not a select group of people.
‘Heed the words of the those making the claims about this planet moving in an irreversible direction or prepare for your generation and the one’s after you to be punished’
This isn’t a democracy, this is Capitalism! (They are different in case people don’t know)
I have been finding that big business and corporations are now running things, and gov’t (although of the people and for the people) is falling neatly into their silver lined pockets (effectively silencing our votes).
It’s really sad to think that some many millions of people can be held hostage to the rules of some 1000’s of people.
*Comment also put on T4T’s blog ‘Freedom! Don’t touch my free…Oops I mean limited choice’
I just watched Capitalism: A Love Story by Michael Moore last night, and with some things he is spot on.
1% of the world owns 99% of the wealth of this planet…anyone else see an inherent problem there? How good of a society can come from this imbalanced sharing of wealth? This inequity is making an irony out of the West, the richest, and poorest, country at the same time.
Companies function like dictatorships, not like democracies…and companies are moving politics in this direction as well (money may be stronger than a vote).
People do not know they are losing their freedoms and rights for the sake of corporation’s lifestyle.
I have come to thoroughly believe, like Sodom, Capitalism as a system is thoroughly ‘evil’ (forgets the poor and needy).
Sabio Lantz wrote a great post on a person’s violence policy (even had a survey). I loved the post so I figured I would use my comment from there state my opinions on violence/non-violence.
I see it this way:
No violence is the absolute ideal – and should be the way I live my life all the time. Based on – I would not want someone to punch me – why would I punch them? I see no need for violence.
However, the standard can be broken to ‘save life’ (since life is of more importance than a stupid ideal). In cases like these, helping someone out, I would step in but non-violently at first. If this cannot be resolved in this manner, I would then use violence as a defence but not to ‘threatens one life’ (if it went to that level). Always seek peace, but if peace cannot avail, you have to help how you can.
It’s kind of a intricate stance to take – but it makes sense (to me). It’s also quite realistic, since life in the West can be lived quite non-violently. There will be small skirmishes here and there, but even then it does not have to lead to furthering the pattern of violence.
“As for your male and female slaves whom you may have–you may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you. Then, too, it is out of the sons of the sojourners who live as aliens among you that you may gain acquisition, and out of their families who are with you, whom they will have produced in your land; they also may become your possession. You may even bequeath them to your sons after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. But in respect to your countrymen, the sons of Israel, you shall not rule with severity over one another.” (Leviticus 25:44-46)
It’s obvious the bible (in some parts) supports slavery, well Leviticus cannot be read more clearly than what’s in bold above.
Christianity, well literal Christianity, has to accept that slavery is ‘a-ok’. By this I mean, the people of God (Israel according to this law) can buy and sell slaves and even pass them down as possessions to their children (which is really a sweet inheritance). Which also means, as Gentiles we would be the ‘slaves’ and not the ‘slave owners’ (or we can have the option of keeping this law by becoming a slave to someone Jewish). Not really a bad deal, no worse than being hated for being gay.
But the question for me is, do things change over time? Can something like slavery, previously supported by the law, eventually be something no longer supported by God?
One of the most untalked about problems in the Christian kingdom is the idea of equality of religions. Christianity, for all it is concerned, has cornered the market on God and no other religion is even close. Christianity is a ‘one way’ street in a ‘two way’ traffic world.
You know, in some ways, I would agree with Christianity – if Christianity had a much better ‘road’ record. I can name off about 40 people in a day’s time (if I had to) that have all professed Christianity as the greatest and only way to live life that have had affairs (with other people’s wives in the congregation some of the time), illegitmate children, bought prostitution (straight and gay), committed fraud against the people that gave, have supported outright hateful causes, etc. And these aren’t just your run of the mill Jim Joneses’ or Fred Phelps, no these are respected ministers, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.
Truth is, Christianity in the West is nothing like what we actually read in the bible, in fact the bible is an Eastern religion of sorts…well a central religion – combining east and west. I believe there are aspects of Capitalism and Socialism in the bible (2 incongruent systems in the West). I believe Jesus was more ascetic in lifestyle than he was corporate (Christianity meets a type of Buddhism and forgoes the side of fries). I believe one could say Jesus was anti-establishment (within reason) and could be seen as a type of Gandhi figure – leading a revolution against Rome (Christianity meets Hinduism). Christianity is concretely based on the tenets of Judaism, another all-together different religion.
So why does Christianity not have space to ‘co-exist’ with other faiths? We don’t seem to be much better than the next one? Are we more spiritual then next one…not really. Can the truths we find through a Judaic off-shoot not be found in Buddhism? What about the Bahai’s? Hows about Mormonism – an off-shoot of us?
Should Christianity become more involved in religious tolerance and working alongside other faiths planet-wide?
Most of us are born into countries with legal systems…correct?
I would think all of us are born innocent before the law…correct?
I am finding it kind of funny the Christian belief in original sin and penal substitution theory (of atonement) as compared with progressive countries in the world.
Certain Christian beliefs would have a person believe they were born ‘guilty’ before the law (ie: original sin). This is prior to them doing any single crime that would condemn them before the law, just being born is enough.
What kind of court system is God running up there exactly? You are born guilty (based on someone else’s sin) and then presumed innocent via someone else’s actions (ie: Jesus). Huh?
So nothing we did made us guilty and nothing we did made us innocent. I have to go with Ockham’s razor on this (easiest solution is likely the right one) and say, why have either doctrine when nothing you do changes one iota of any of it? Really you are not a part of God’s plan of how things work out, your a pawn on a chess board being saved by bigger key figures than yourself.
That’s a strange court and a strange way of ruling one out of the importance of their own choices in life.
Loosing My Religion 