RATED "X"

[charley]

You know, it's those christians that you never hear about, who do good and brave things and don't seek personal attention, those are the people I value and wish that they would acquire the clarity to realize that it is their own brains and bodies and efforts that deserve the credit for what they do, instead of degradingly "...giving the glory to god.." One of the biggest crimes of christianity is what I call this "stealing of virtue". denying those who deserve it good and healthy pride in what they do. I hear so much these days about "harmful" pursuits that lead to bad behavior, like pornography and video games. What about telling children that they are inherently unworthy of life, if it was not for the benign whim of a dubious diety who for many years has had bad labor-relations with many of his own angels (those in hell. What's their side? hmmm...) ,....now, what kind of mental abuse is that, to submit those children in your care to such a message? It's my contention that there is no way that you can spin and sugar-coat the idea of inherent sinfulness that necessitates a life-long and FUTILE attempt at repenting. If there were some kind of realistic end-goal, the effects would be different. But the instillation of a life-long neurotic anxiety that compels people into vain striving toward an ideal of "perfection" is clear mental abuse. I think that the way most christians deal with it is to refer to jesus dying for our sins. That assuaging of guilt is only temporary, though, as the pews are only filled on sunny sunday mornings by those driven by guilt. So, the guilt must be doled out again in sufficient doses to get the church bills paid...only to be alleviated again by the blood of jesus...and so the cycle goes, on and on. And on those sunday morns, the sermons will also many times be about our children being exposed to violent video games...but violence is not sinful enogh, as we might need a violent propensity instilled in our youngsters for wartime...but what about sex...SEX...oh, save me jesus. What if I came home and found my little one lustfully rubbing his or her "little one" while on the internet....the internet...surely an open window to the depths of hell...(at least I do my best to make it so!)...

But in my opinion the depths of hell are, for all intents and purposes, the depths of our unconcious minds, and any standard of being "well-adjusted" should include concious efforts to maintain self-awareness of this. We would not have to fear our young people being harmed by such activities cited above, that open our unconcious natural drives and celebrate them, if home and society built a strong foundation of personal worth in them derived from a more sophisticated secular culture that focused on personal accomplishment rather than the grace of god as the source for ones success (or lack of it). That would ensure that they did what was necessary to take care of themselves and fullfill their responsibilities to others, instead of being dangerously obsessed with psychological compulsions of a sexual or violent nature that dominated their time and attention. As any Freudian or other insight therapist will tell you, once someones inner devils are brought into the light of day, they become non-threatening, benign and helpful things. This religious stuff has got to go to end this guilt-repentance-syndrome that characterizes the modern ideal of a well-socialized person. But instead, as we well know, manufactures idiots and unfortunate tradgedies. We may have been one of these idiots ourselves, and have done things we regret due to that idiocy.

Perhaps christianity should be rated "X", for adults only, because we can expect at least as much malformation of a young mind exposed to such stimulation than we could expect from the most questionable pornography.

[Taphophilia]

I agree with this. The ideal of Christianity is impossible and does allow humanity. In fact, humanity or humanness is a sin and should be excercised.

 

My 11 year old son was watching "The Man Show" and I told my friend about this and she told me I was wrong for letting him watch it because it disrespects women. She told me I should let him watch the Playboy channel instead because it would better for his sexual development.

 

I didn't subscribe to the channel, but I did buy him a tape. I watched it before I let him watch it, and it wasn't anything worse than what he would see on TV and it was respectful to women.

 

Taph

[charley]

I think that was a good thing to do, Taph. I know that even when guys are put in a live atmosphere that treats the women with respect, such as the bachelor party stripper service that I provided for years, that the guys wind up actually enjoying the whole thing more. I think that is because if their idiocy is encouraged, they wind up feeling like idiots later. And it is more important how you remember these expensive events rather than having every transient whim catered to during them, because you spend a lot more time remembering them than experiencing them ...(I hope that makes sense)...

Anyways, the point I was trying to make was that I spent years making sure these guys treated the girls well and the ones who weren't total assholes were gratefull to me for it. That's a good example, because the severely prudish would think of such parties as a pandoras box that when opened would inevitably have destructive results. They are only partially correct, because if one starts off with a less-than-miserable clientele these things can be managed. I did it safely for years.

What you described and what this shows is that when people make conscientious efforts to indulge themselves in ways that are agreeable to all involed, it can be done with satisfacyory outcomes for all, contrary to the scaremongers.

 

But, most people are at the level of needing babysitting, which I have run out of patience for...so, they can see them on one of my sites :

 

Only for those eighteen and older, click here

[Lycorth]

Perhaps christianity should be rated "X", for adults only, because we can expect at least as much malformation of a young mind exposed to such stimulation than we could expect from the most questionable pornography.

 

Heh - I like that. Xianity can surely screw with young minds terribly. I was rather fortunate to not grow up with too much of a hell complex, and avoided the self-hating guilt complex entirely. But I do remember being in First Grade at Catholic school (I think it was first grade) and at the back of the classroom there were several large bulletin boards. On one of them, the teacher had made out of construction paper a diagram of heaven and hell, and little paper souls. I don't remember if it was some sort of classroom merit thing, where the kids had a paper soul assigned to them and got sent to heaven or hell based on their behavior and/or performance, or if it was strictly to illustrate the Church's teaching about salvation and damnation, but that did stick in my mind. I remember staring at it and the teacher's words of never being able to get out of hell repeating in my head. Of course, once in heaven I couldn't be thrown out, either, but that was another matter - the hell teaching did make me a little paranoid. I was always so afraid of seeming disrespectful to a religious object or behaving wrongly in church because of course I didn't want to make God made and get sent to hell.

 

I think that, later in life, made it harder for me to admit to myself that I had questions about Xianity. I was always afraid of, in the end, displeasing Biblegodzilla and getting damned to burn forever. That was the one thing that kept me at least a semi-nominally loyal Xian, the fear of eternal pain and torment. Now I see how silly that all was, but undoing powerful programming implemented at a very early age is usually a hard process. It's no wonder many people find it so traumatic to leave Xianity or even to question it; they have to first reconcile themseles to the fact that they won't be sent to endless suffering just because they can't make themselves believe bullshit.

[Yaoi Huntress Earth]

Let's not forget some the ultra-strict guilt laws such as looking at a woman lustfully counts as adultry or you technically "murder" someone if you get mad at them.

[godlessgrrl]

Christians have a product to sell, and it's salvation through Jesus.

 

I think the truth is, we don't really need it. Just Xianity convinces a lot of people that we/they do need it, by vilifying being human.

 

I mean, everything that Xianity argues as being wrong or worthy of hell is just some behavior or thought or action or whatever on the large spectrum of stuff that humans just do. We do some stuff that's great, some that's awful, some that really isn't either one, and variations of all of the above; yet it seems Xianity just ends up making the claim that everything there is about being human is somehow bad and wrong and hellworthy.

 

It just seems so pathologically unhealthy to create a religion that sells itself by denigrating humanity. And yes, even more twisted to teach this belief to children.

 

I can't even think of anything that anybody's done to me that I'd retaliate by really wishing hell on them. I have some pretty wicked vengeance fantasies sometimes, but hell? No way. My vengeance would be limited. It'd be vengeance, no doubt about that, but not forever.

 

Biblegod, on the other hand... if sending people to hell is his "justice", and they go forever, well jeez - wtf is that?? Go forever to hell for just being a human being? I mean even the worst I'd ever wish on the most horrible human beings is nonexistence, not perpetual torture.

 

Hmm. I'm thinking biblegod isn't a just and merciful deity at all, he's really a vengeful, sick tyrant.

 

Okay, semi-related rant over.

[Yaoi Huntress Earth]

I think the truth is, we don't really need it. Just Xianity convinces a lot of people that we/they do need it, by vilifying being human.

 

And I think in return, we become worse than the minor feelings we villianize. How else can fundies overlook abortion clinic bombings yet throw a tantrum over a boob on TV (and I don't mean President Bush.) In a way we become blind to the true evils in life.

 

mm. I'm thinking biblegod isn't a just and merciful deity at all, he's really a vengeful, sick tyrant.

 

I feel the exact same way.