Skip to main content

Banned From Heaven; Mature Adults Not Wanted

By Carl S ~

First of all, here's a great comment from a BBC series: "Being a vicar doesn't make him right. It just means others assume he's right." To which we might add: All houses of worship with their pastors and apologists are encyclopedias of assumptions.

Now, I am not making this up. It's Christian dogma: "that unless you become as a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven." Got that? You must become a trusting, gullible, unquestioning, obedient child. (Too bad that these adults forgo being the kinds of children of curiosity and questioning who become the scientists who keep their childhood sense of discovery and wonder.) Which leaves me, as a curious, questioning, rebellious, free thinking and skeptical mature adult, ineligible for entrance. As such, I'm not only barred from any future "heaven," but from all churches.

This child/adult difference explains some previously mysterious but now obvious questions. Believers are like the above described children. Therefore, you're banging your head against a brick wall trying to talk any sense to them; if you can get them to talk seriously about what they claim to be the most important thing in their lives, their faith (following the examples of their shepherds, the masters of avoidance). And churches give their inner child the place to act up.

Like a child clinging to a security blanket, the believer is on guard for any perceived movement that might threaten to take "it" away. Sometimes you get the feeling that they have been warned that YOU, oh you agent of doubt, are trying to tempt them with candy and will make them the next victims.

Frequently, outspoken Christians exhibit spoiled child behavior such as having tantrums when they're questioned, or whenever they don't get their way. Often, also like spoiled (chosen) children, they try to make the ones opposing them out to be persecutors, and themselves the persecuted. Like such children, they insist on, naturally, preferential deference because they believe...whatever it is they believe. No matter how ludicrous their beliefs are. Give people like that power and you've got troubles

Like a child clinging to a security blanket, the believer is on guard for any perceived movement that might threaten to take "it" away.In fact, these "children of God" in the U.S. are engaged in religious warfare. They have influenced the government to the extent of getting away with making internecine warfare in traditional ways. For example, the Catholic Church is using the legal system in making war by depriving non-Catholic patients in their hospitals of their Constitutional rights, by forcing them to comply with its doctrines. Christian denominations are making war on each other through the power of discriminating in their employee hiring, doctrinally purging workers within their government-supported ranks, by firing them strictly for their beliefs. Typically, members of one Christian denomination want the right to refuse to issue licenses to same-sex marriage partners of other Christian denominations, who believe differently than they do.

Some believers want the right to death with dignity, while others are fighting against them because THEY believe the opposite is "God's will." And "God's will" can be interpreted to mean anything within each denomination, sect, and even in minor cults! "God's will" is a weapon wielded to enforce. It's about domination. When one denomination dominates over another in any way, it's war. As usual, Christians are the ones persecuting Christians.

And the U. S. judicial system, which should never be involved in religious battles of any kind, is being sucked into them, to the consternation and disorder of our society and legal system, which was established to protect the rights religious denominations would revoke. Thus, spoiled-brat exemptions to the very laws the electorate is sworn to uphold are causing needless pain and the waste of time and taxpayer money. But the temper-tantrum throwing children refuse to give an inch of accommodation. So much for virtue, charity, ethics, fairness, and freedom of religion itself, there!

And so many problems are because religions insist they are entitled to the utmost respect because of tradition and the fact that they believe, even though WHAT they believe is just plain bizarre. And that’s all there is? Maybe they should NOT be respected because of what they REFUSE to believe, which is just about everything uncomfortable in reality. But then, growing up and taking adult responsibility for moral decisions and facing the facts of life isn't easy. And it certainly won't get you into the fantasyland heavens or paradises. No thanks, I'll take maturity.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~   S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden –  Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Morality is not a Good Argument for Christianity

By austinrohm ~ I wrote this article as I was deconverting in my own head: I never talked with anyone about it, but it was a letter I wrote as if I was writing to all the Christians in my life who constantly brought up how morality was the best argument for Christianity. No Christian has read this so far, but it is written from the point of view of a frustrated closeted atheist whose only outlet was organizing his thoughts on the keyboard. A common phrase used with non-Christians is: “Well without God, there isn’t a foundation of morality. If God is not real, then you could go around killing and raping.” There are a few things which must be addressed. 1. Show me objective morality. Define it and show me an example. Different Christians have different moral standards depending on how they interpret the Bible. Often times, they will just find what they believe, then go back into scripture and find a way to validate it. Conversely, many feel a particular action is not

On Living Virtuously

By Webmdave ~  A s a Christian, living virtuously meant living in a manner that pleased God. Pleasing god (or living virtuously) was explained as: Praying for forgiveness for sins  Accepting Christ as Savior  Frequently reading the Bible  Memorizing Bible verses Being baptized (subject to church rules)  Attending church services  Partaking of the Lord’s Supper  Tithing  Resisting temptations to lie, steal, smoke, drink, party, have lustful thoughts, have sex (outside of marriage) masturbate, etc.  Boldly sharing the Gospel of Salvation with unbelievers The list of virtuous values and expectations grew over time. Once the initial foundational values were safely under the belt, “more virtues'' were introduced. Newer introductions included (among others) harsh condemnation of “worldly” music, homosexuality and abortion Eventually the list of values grew ponderous, and these ideals were not just personal for us Christians. These virtues were used to condemn and disrespect fro