The history channel has been interesting this week with several armageddon type shows. The whole thing sort of confuses me if I look at it as a pure religious conversation.
There are all of these religious folks out their saying we can expect armageddon in our lifetime. So what? What does it mean to us living our daily lives? According to them we can’t prevent it, we can’t change it. Someone who is already supposedly living by their religious values should be fine, what do they care if it happens in their lifetime or after? Those who aren’t living by some specific religious value really don’t care that the religious folks say the time is nigh… An all knowing “god” couldn’t possibly be fooled by someone who lied, cheated, stealed, killed, or did whatever crappy things and then does a last second confession. So, why do we care WHEN it is going to happen? If she could be fooled, doesn’t that kind of make a mockery of anyone constantly following the precepts of the religions?
Most of this seems to be coming out of the Christians. It seems the non-Christian religions don’t have armageddon as the central theme. Just that eventually the world will be detroyed and only god knows when that is so they live their days as they normally would. That seems far more intelligent to me if any of it is intelligent and it follows the idea that you should live your life like you will be here tomorrow, next year, and ten years from now. Actually the Christians are supposed to follow that as well but don’t seem to follow the passage very well…
Anyway, this all sort of confused me until I realized how much money these people who are pushing the whole armeddon thing are making. These people are all selling books and filling churches and getting donations and the more scared people are about it the more they want to read to find out the “secrets” so they aren’t left out. We laugh at the people standing in the streets looking like bums that have the signs saying that the world is ending and send more money to those preaching it from pulpits and in books… This all makes quite a bit of sense now.
If I knew Jesus or god or Jehovah or the great spaghetti god or anyone else were coming next week and destroying everything we know now and making a whole new world the biggest change in what I do is I would pull all the money out of my bank accounts and stocks and funds, etc and go buy a Lamborghini and an airplane and race around at top speed. I have always wanted to do that, but I am more concerned about having a good retirement nest egg and not being worried about how to pay the electric bill when I am 80 than I am about having fun racing a car at 200 MPH and an airplane at 500 or so MPH. If I ever become a multimillionaire though… watch out.
Personally, I think the best message from any deity would be, you guys are going to be there on your own a long time, you better straighten your shit up or you will be mighty unhappy living in the crappy world you have built. Oh and stop killing people because you have your panties in a bunch because they don’t believe the same things you do. Not everyone has to believe in me, that is what free will is all about you boobs.
Why do you hate christians and conservatives so much? You seem to focus on only their shortcomings and let other religious/atheist zealots off with out a comment.
Hate is an extremely strong word. I don’t care enough about, as you say it, “christians and conservatives” to hate them let alone hate them so much. I would say I hate snow and cold weather before I said I hated christians and conservatives.
What may be confusing you is that I do not have an issue pointing at things I see as folly. This applies to anything that I look at and see as stupid. I don’t personally feel it is a good thing sitting back and not saying anything because the topic is about religion and it allegedly isn’t good to talk about religion. People think this isn’t good because one of the tenets of the Christian religion is to not question it…
I have questioned everything since I was old enough to read, including religion. I even took religious studies and philosophy classes at university to try and understand better what the hoo ha was about for ANY religion and simply came away with an understanding that many people have an issue living life without dedicating it to something else or believing they are part of something bigger or are required to act in a certain way. I summarize the thought by saying that many people can’t live without invisible means of support.
Anyway, you are welcome to fire up a blog and do the same, heck post a link if you want, I would love to read it. This blog isn’t to tell you what to think. It is to give my viewpoint on things I see. You will note part of the title of the actual blog is “wild and crazy opinions”.
The “Christians” in the context of this post is in direct reference to the only religion which has Armageddon (which includes mass genocide second only to the holy Flood of Noah I might point out) as one of the central tennets that are used to drive membership, guilt, and fear in their ranks.
I find myself confused by the popularity of a religion that has the end of the world, mass killing in the name of love, and a man nailed to a board as its popular icons. I find it further confusing how pick and choose these same folks are about quoting from the bible as evidenced by the passage I indicated that says no one will know when Armageddon is coming but has been constantly pointed at as going to happen in this generation’s lifetime since oh, about the time Jesus was nailed to a board with every generation pointing at the specific pieces that indicate that it obviously is going to happen right now and ignoring anything that doesn’t fit saying you have to know how to “read” the bible.
It all sort of makes sense when you strip away the religion and realize there are monetary agendas in play and that is why certain things are highlighted and certain things are skipped over…
I am not currently aware of any atheist or other religious zealots running around talking about how the world is going to end in this generation, in fact the scientists are doing the opposite, they are pointing at the natural disasters saying that we will find a way to survive all of them but the hell that our world is becoming is of our own making and we need to change how we treat the world and the people in it (all of the people in it, not just the ones that have the same ethos) or else it is going to really suck.
I must admit, I am not making a scientific study of it, just commenting on what gets thrown in my face on a pretty regular basis. I honestly don’t care, if you didn’t pick it up from the post itself, if armageddon is in the next 10 years or 15,000 years or never it has no bearing on anything I do at any level on a day to day basis. I treat people as I feel like not because I think someone is going to come down and spank me but because I want to. I wouldn’t even think about this stupid stuff if it weren’t on TV or in the bookstores or jumps out at me in the form of a missionary asking me where I will be when I hear the trump and the call…
As for conservatives, this post had nothing to do with conservatives unless you are trying to say that all conservatives are Christians.
I would like to set you straight on a couple things. First, christianity is not a religion. It is more a less a grouping of religions that have similar beliefs, the most important being the belief that Jesus was the son of God and he died on the cross to save all humans. That said, most Christain religions do not claim an armageddon is coming anytime soon. So you are very much generalizing Christains as fear inducing wackos. Yes, there are some groups who try to instill the fear og God into you, but that a very vocal 10% of Christains.
More than 80% of Americans claim to be Christain. I have never met one that claims the world is coming to and end. Lets be honest, religion was probably meant as a way for people to have something positive to believe in. It is called faith or better yet hope. When I look at my childrens faces, I can’t honestly believe that life is just a coincidence of many unrelated events accidently happening and creating the earth and every object in the universe.
As far as other religious zealots, do you realize that most fundamentalist forms of religion (read christain, islam and Judaeism) think that those of not their beliefs should and will be painfully removed from existence by their god(s). It just so happens that Christianilty is the predominent belief system in this country thereby those are the ones you hear about in our media.
As far as your blog is concerned, I enjoy it very much most of the time. I just feel that you sometimes over generalize and quite frankly do not accept that people can have differing views other than yours.
If we were at a bar I would buy you beer and would love to chat about Active Directory, but I would try to stay away from religion and politics.
Joe-
If you can find an hour to spare, give a listen to “This American Life” episode 304 (Real Audio link: http://www.thislife.org/ra/304.ram). Synopsis: “The story of Reverend Carlton Pearson, a renowned evangelical pastor in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who cast aside the idea of hell, and with it, everything he’d worked for over his entire life.”
The same kind of “aaah, the money” realization surfaces about halfway through the piece.
Cheers,
Hunter
Thanks Hunter, any chance they have a non-Real Audio link? I guess I can go looking. I dislike REAL as your machine tends to act pretty crappy after loading their engines. Though I guess I could throw it in a virtual and then roll it back.
Irish_Bug, thanks for the comment.
I don’t see Christianity as a bunch of religions. I see Christianity as a system of beliefs (religion) involving a single deity with multiple sects/denominations that follow this basic precept. It is a Western Religion which is one of the three sets of the Abrahamic or Semitic religions all of which worship the same “god†and come from the same original traditions, albeit all with rather different approaches and understandings.
Interestingly enough, the three religions you mentioned, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are the three main Semitic religions so the fact that they all have Armageddon at the central core is not a debate. What I am trying to say is that Christians, far more than the other two branches seem to very much embrace the concept of the Armageddon and many seem to be looking forward to it.
The whole point of trying to atone for sin and live by god’s rules is so you will reap that reward at the end when it is the end. The religions are far more based on punishment, atonement, guilt, and fear than love, understanding, happiness, etc which they try to pass off as the meaning behind it all. Simply look at the history.
Obviously claiming being a Christian doesn’t really make it. Ask your clergy. As a general rule, it is considered bad taste or possibly even dangerous in this country to not claim some allegiance to the Christian “god” due to the assumed penetration of the religion. I have Jewish friends and friends who haven’t figured out what they are who will simply say they are Christians or more simply “believe in god†which is interpreted automatically in this country as being Christian to avoid conflict or debate. It falls into category of when all of the locals rub blue mud in their belly buttons, it is safest to do so as well or… when in Rome, do as the Romans. It is similar for folks who aren’t strictly heterosexual. Our country doesn’t have a very good history and still isn’t very good at being accepting of minority mindsets.
This is completely off the cuff and not based on any statistics or reports or studies but I expect based on my experiences in this country in my life to date that the percentage of true practicing Christians (any sect) is closer to 30%, possibly less. With the majority of that being in the lower echelons of our society, the groups that are less educated and less affluent.
The rest of the folks claiming Christianity I think are comprised of folks that occasionally visit a church and try to generally follow the principals around the various holidays and for wedding/funerals/baptisms, etc or folks that simply don’t want to piss anyone off by saying they aren’t into god or just don’t care what kind of answer they give to someone who asks them.
I expect that the vast majority of Americans are actually some form of Deists when it really comes down to it. You don’t often hear that term so most people probably don’t even know what it means even though it best fits the descriptions many people have given for the type of faith they have. I expect this is why “the church†has not really spoken out against this form of Christianity because it might upset things a bit too much. Much easier to attack religions such as Judaism, Islam, Mormon, Christian Science, etc which are far enough removed that you don’t have to worry about your own community realizing that that may fit them better. Generally the only folks that have issue with Deists are the groups with very literal stances on the translation of the bible.
Don’t mistake my willingness to state what I think and to debate when someone else states something else as an attitude of not accepting differing views. If I didn’t want differing views, you couldn’t have left the initial comment that I purposely had to approve to make it onto the blog. No one posts to my blog without me clearing them to do so. I use it to keep spam off the list, but if I wanted, I could easily censor the comments. I see no purpose in doing so. I wouldn’t be who I am without debating people about various topics through the years.
I very much avoid talking in person and usually through email with most people about religion or politics because most people have no ability to discuss the topics without emotion. Not to be mean but a statement such as “When I look at my childrens faces, I can’t honestly believe that life is just a coincidence of many unrelated events accidently happening and creating the earth and every object in the universe.†is entirely an emotional argument and there is no logical point that can be used effectively to counter an emotional argument no matter what folks think of it. The inability to hold an emotionless debate on a topic makes it a worthless debate. This also goes for telling mother’s how their children really look.
Take care!
I’ve never seen a straight MP3 link, it’s either RA or pay for a CD. The stuff on TAL is consistently good enough that I’ll tolerate the RA crap. VM is a better idea, though.