Vigile Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 Currently I'm rereading the old WWI classic Johnny Got His Gun. For those unfamiliar, this is the book that inspired the Metallica video One. In the book, Joe, the protagonist, an American soldier who had been fighting the Germans in France awakes in a hospital bed and slowly comes to the realization that he has no arms, no legs, no eyes, no ears, no mouth, no nose, that he is essentially a slab of beef whose brain still happens to function normally. And worse, they are keeping him alive like this, no communication with the outside world and only his thoughts to keep him company. Joe realizes that he is going to live in this condition for the rest of his life. Never again will he see, hear, smell, talk, love. And, Joe is likely going to live in this hell for years and years to come as he has no way of even ending his own miserable life. He's alive, yet he's dead and he is aware of this fact. I would offer that this book offers a good lesson and a good response to the friends and relatives of exers when our friends and relatives prod us and antagonize us for our unbelief. Try this on for size: Hand your friend/relative a copy of this book and say: Mom, dad [fill in the blank], I once believed wholeheartedly. My belief sustained me and it was my life. I didn't attempt to live a half-hearted xian life, I dug in with abandon seeking to establish a real relationship with Christ. I prayed, I contemplated, I beseeched god for wisdom and understanding. Yet you raised me to be responsible, honest and trustworthy. These values are important to me. The problem is, as questions about my faith began to arise I relied on god even more profoundly. I prayed even harder. I studied even more. Yet my faith began to abandon me, I didn't abandon it. As my faith began to wane, I cried bitter prayers beseeching god to restore my faith and to not let me go. The bible says that if I seek I shall find. I sought. Oh, how I sought. But eventually I could no longer believe. It wasn't as if I decided not to believe and that I can now decide to believe once again. Can you make yourself believe in Santa? No. Belief isn't something that you can conjure up. Belief is either there or it is not. Even when I really, really, really wanted to believe, I could no longer do so. So now here I am. According to the doctrine which you believe when I die god is going to sentence me to an existence worse than poor old Joe from Johnny Got His Gun. For the record, I don't believe this will happen, but you do. So I ask you, is this reasonable? Is this moral? Your own son/daughter/friend/[fill in the blank] sought with all his/her heart and in the end had no choice in the matter and now, again, according to the doctrine you believe, will spend an eternity suffering in a cocoon of quiet desperation through no fault of my own; in fact, just the opposite. Just think on that for a while before you rebuke me for my unbelief. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Telesmith Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 Oh, damn! Well I'll say that about does the trick. Permission to copy and paste if I should ever come out to my folks? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trev Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 Great post Vigile and a great song too - when Metallica were still good Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted July 15, 2008 Author Share Posted July 15, 2008 Oh, damn! Well I'll say that about does the trick. Permission to copy and paste if I should ever come out to my folks? By all means, please do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xequar Posted July 16, 2008 Share Posted July 16, 2008 Oh, damn! Well I'll say that about does the trick. Permission to copy and paste if I should ever come out to my folks? By all means, please do. If the family brings it up again, I will likely borrow pieces of this commentary! I dunno if you saw my recent thread, but I suspect that at some point, the conversation's gonna happen... That or everyone will just pretend everything's great in fine Christian fashion Either way, thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Misterspock1 Posted July 17, 2008 Share Posted July 17, 2008 Oh, damn! Well I'll say that about does the trick. Permission to copy and paste if I should ever come out to my folks? By all means, please do. I think I'm going to put this on my blog. See what kind of responses it generates from my Christian friends (and my non-Christian friends, for that matter). Don't worry, I'll cite you on it. Did it once before with something Kuroikaze posted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taphophilia Posted July 17, 2008 Share Posted July 17, 2008 I saw the movie a while ago. It's on You Tube. Here are the links to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlwtrQ_RoX8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThZgV48okLg...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu8uAg6xa3U...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBX1vfbP8mo...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhQVITbaGlw...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPvb-fvfsPc...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N5-h61LhII...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZld0P1DSE8...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI5cVZh_QLA...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EWt0o5cAoA...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND-xloGOpkw...feature=related Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Misterspock1 Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 Lol. I posted this on my blog, and just a couple days later I received a reply from a "brick" telling me that if I was really saved I wouldn't have ever doubted or feared, and that God doesn't send me to Hell I choose to go there (and how leaving my faith was a choice), and how God loves me. It closed with a nice little message saying, please do not reject Jesus, for that path leads to destruction. Jesus Christ, can I get any more religious cliches here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted July 21, 2008 Author Share Posted July 21, 2008 Thanks for posting the film Taph. They stayed pretty true to the book, but with a couple of important differences. They, unfortunately, left out a very nice diatribe about how we fight wars over undefinable words like Peace, Liberty, and Making the world safe for democracy. It was very well thought out and quite powerful. I think this is why the book was quashed as WWII started and these sentiments were what got Trumbo black listed by McCarthy. Second, in the book he didn't ask to be killed. The book was much more heartbreaking. When he finally got a nurse to understand that he was using Morse code, she rushed out and brought back just one guy, not a crowd. Joe was shocked that his communication was not a more important event for the hospital staff. The guy she brought back to reply to his code was a robotic bureaucrat. With heavy, cold fingers he typed out WHAT DO YOU WANT? After Joe gave a rambling response about being put into a carnival (which the film did portray) the bureacrat simply responded WHAT YOU ASK FOR IS AGAINST REGULATION. WHO ARE YOU? After that they sedated him again and when he awoke he realized, like in the film, that they just wanted to forget about him; lock him in the back room and let him live out his miserable life until he died of old age or complications, probably years and years later. When you read it it just leaves you cold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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