0. since this is Jim's thread, if he is okay going off topic or asks for PM or a separate thread, I will follow his instructions.
overall I am glad you can see humor in this, that is much more productive than anger or any ill will these topics normally bring up for people who have issues against judgmental Christians. I have some other political humor about church-state that I could share with you, if we have the same serious sense of humor about this. When I write satire, I take it very seriously, even making fun of myself taking things too seriously, so that would be great if we share the same intellectual sense of humor about what is not funny otherwise.
here's another one:
Juliet & Romeo: A Play on Life in America
where the Capulets are prolife conservative Christians (Juliet is a prolife feminist)
and the Montagues are liberals, where Romeo is atheist and his friends are gay, socialists and anarchists. Let me know if this is your type of humor. If you don't want to stowaway on Jim's thread or train to heaven, we can unload our baggage onto another train going the other direction. (That Jefferson story is probably more along those lines, like purgatory and hell, but told as adult humor to mix spiritual and political metaphors.)
If you have more sense than to go there, maybe you are a better person than I am.
I must be really bad and out of control if even my atheist friends who hate Christianity with a passion won't dare make fun of the problems to the extent that I do, but will shut up first.
My suggested listenings were not intended to be taken as anything more than a background of levity to the KumBaYa campfire of "understanding" you seem to be organizing.
0. All this talk of heaven and coming to jesus makes me laugh. I couldn't care less what Jimmy boy wants so send him a PM instead of piggy backing on your replies to my posts please.
I doubt you will find a universal language that covers the stink of false premises.
Not to be rude but the business at hand is whether heaven is real.
What THAT begs is whether god is real or if the creation of the idea of heaven in the bible is based on anything real.
The OP never intended for a serious discussion to break out as is obvious by his pre pubescent comments and lame insults proves.
1. My interest in heaven is aligned with my interest in justice as it is the payoff in the big christian scam.
2. Heaven is only as real as it is usefull bait and an alternative to it's counterpart when enlisting the naive and the weak to throw themselves on the mercy of the perpetrators of the fraud.
3. I understand that my input is a spit in the ocean as the ponzi scheme was almost completely successfull. Too little...too late? Maybe but as long as there are people like yourself unwilling to let those that found holes in the net be myself and others like me must say what we can.
Hi Huggy
1. if you and I are this equally concerned about justice, and addressing and correcting the wrongs done by abuse of either religious authority of church law and/or political authority of state law, then I do join with you on this.
It tells me you and Bruce are committed by conscience to outting the wrongs, if you bother to interact at all with Christians on this matter. Some of my friends have well given up and won't even bother. So it tells me you and Bruce are of good conscience to keep seeking truth and justice even at the expense of persecution for it.
2. No, the point is NOT to be as a doormat and "turn the other cheek" as in letting people "slap you around" or in this case people slapping each other back and forth.
The point is to arrest all the slapping altogether.
The point of "turning the other cheek" is not to slap "backhanded" as masters did to their slaves who were considered "noncitizens" and underdeserving of a forehanded slap.
The point of offering the other cheek is to demand to be "rebuked as a peer" as an EQUAL.
And that is what we are supposed to be doing here, not putting each other down, or trying to cut each other down, but remove the "beams and splinters" from our eyes so we can see our faults clearly which tend to be MUTUAL.
so for your last point
3. we are all tiny parts of a bigger solution.
The insights you have or Bruce offers as to where things are missing their mark,
are equally needed as are Jim and Irish's contributions and feedback.
We got on the subject of justice, but without justice there is no peace.
So if we can figure out how to establish justice without punishing ourselves and each
other collectively and collaterally for past damages,
maybe we can master the process of making peace by establishing truth and
agreement on just solutions.
Thank you Huggy
Your humility in thinking you are a just a "drop" next to the vast ocean or tsunami of destruction going on
is actually refreshing and revealing.
it is the meek who shall inherit the earth and be called the children of God or peacemakers.
You and Bruce may have exactly what it takes to brave the storm
and do your small part to make a difference, rather than do nothing at all
which is playing the victim.
It only take 2-5 people agreeing on reform, and things set in motion.
So if you me and Bruce can agree how to talk about these things,
how to set up a grievance and rebuke process that doesn't involve
slamming secular gentiles and nontheists for thinking in nonBiblical terms,
maybe we can get somewhere instead of this same tidal wave of
religious based rejection and abuse continuing on and on without any correction.
This has been an ongoing issue, and some of the "academic Christians" have responded when I brought up these ideas of how to communicate across religious lines.
Bruce is highly intellectual, even more discerning than I am where I am okay taking shortcuts and using figurative symbology to represent holistic ideas, where he demands more literal terms spelled out.
if we can translate all this symbology in Christian religious and Biblical terms and teachings
into common social psychology and science terms for the human development process,
we can help a lot more people stop the infighting and backbiting with religious abuse and political bullying back and forth.
Thanks, Huggy
Your participation is more valuable than you might think.
I appreciate your bothering to interact here at all, as with Bruce,
and I hope you and he see the process through to the end.
You may think it is off topic, but these interactions all over this forum,
and all over the internet, are part of the larger process to "hash out
grievances and differences" and make heaven on earth out of hell.
Thank you for your part in this.
We are just drops in comparison, but that is how the whole ocean is made.
Rivers that carve out paths through mountains are made up of drops of water.
It takes every atom of every molecule to make matter,
so each part serves its purpose in the greater scheme.
It is wonderful to find other people who (like me) did not come from a Christian background and do not naturally think like Christians teach, bothering to reach out and try to do something about the problem this causes when religions are imposed by judgment.
I have struggled and struggled to make sense of the meaning and purpose that drives Christians, and how to translate that and align it with the same call for reform and justice as secular and other groups believe in pushing for just as relentlessly.
If we can learn to push as a team, and not against one another, how much more can we achieve in changing the social conditions that oppress and divide us, ending poverty and curing disease?
We can do a lot more if we can communicate effectively across political and religious lines and not attack or reject each other over affiliations we have or don't have.
We have a lot more to learn and to master from past experiences and failures, so thanks for whatever you are doing towards that end, on or off topic, it still matters.
Maybe you and Bruce are here to help me. So if nothing else, you make a difference to me.
Thanks for this!