A little too close to home?

Well, it seems my last post was a little bit too close to home for at least one person...but I have to wonder why s/he didn't bother to post a name or URL and chose, instead to call herself Anonymous. I always wonder about people who post anonymously when the option to leave a name is available...why don't they want their identity associated with what they have said? I find myself unable to take someone entirely seriously if they are ashamed or afraid to stand up for what they have written by putting their name to it.

So my anonymous correspondent takes me to task: Ouch! While I agree that some Christians fall way short of the ideal pattern set out for them by Jesus, I think you're being a little harsh here, we are not all bad! Surely, there have to be some good ones out there? For you to generalize makes you just as bad as the very people you are criticizing!

And I replied: Missed the point, didja?Go back and re-read. Everything posted in pink in this post (and yellow in the previous post) are direct quotes from self-identified Christians. Every one...and their screen names and a link to where those posts are originated is also provided.You may not mind being lumped into the same basket as delusional people who think they are hearing from Richard Nixon in heaven, who believe the Flintstones are historically correct, who think educating women is emasculating and who think torturing children is OK, but I don't want to be associated with these people.Tell me, would you kill YOUR child if s/he professed to be an athiest? There is a quote here from a woman who says she would!Do yourself a favour and go to www.fstdt.com and read the entries every day for a month. Just ONE month. Then get back to me.

What I did not do is to ask this person where I generalized. I made the statement that I do not want to be associated with these people, which is not a generalization but a statement of fact. What comes to mind when you hear the word "Christian"? For most of my life it meant kind, thoughtful, helpful people, people who loved their neighbours and did good works, who helped the poor. People like my grandparents who may not have gone to church often, but who donated to charity, participated in fund raisers for poor people, who behaved modestly, respected others, and were kind, loving people. But today if you say "Christian" to me, what comes to mind are the people we used to call "religious fanatics," nutcases who believed all kinds of fantastical...and impossible...things and who are determined to cram it down the throats of everyone they come across.

Their beliefs are ludicrous, their methods horrific: rape (FLDS), starvation (the family whose 14 year old son died of starvation while they had more than $3000 in the bank..."tithe money" they refused to use to feed their kids), depriving a dying woman of oxygen so they can harangue her one more time with their demands that she accept their religious beliefs (see previous blog), beating children until they submit (see yesterday's blog), willing to murder their own children rather than see them become atheists (previous blog)...the list of monstrous behaviours these people are willing to commit is beyond belief. Treason is a given, as they advocate violation of the Constitution in the pursuit of their ends: conversion of the US into a theocracy.

Generalization? No. By their own words they condemn themselves and when you say "Christian" to me, these are the people who now come to my mind. And given the visibility of the Religious Right, I'm willing to bet that most people, when they hear the word "Christian," these shameful people are what come to mind, not the kind, respectful, loving, helpful people who wore the name in the past.

Go ahead, I dare you...go to www.fstdt.com and read it for a month. Just click the link and then bookmark it. Read EVERY post they put up. Go back to the sources they cite and read the websites these quotes come from. Do it every day for a month and you will have a picture of just how pervasive...and lunatic...fundamentalist Christianity really is.

Then come back in a month and tell me you don't find these people and their beliefs scary...especially the belief that they are mandated by their god to force the rest of us to accept their belief or suffer horrific punishment (and not just in the afterlife...some of these people advocate capital punishment...including burning at the stake for heresy!).

These aren't your grandmother's gentle Christians, these are a whole new and dangerous breed who believe that the word "freedom" applies only to those who believe as they do. Be afraid, be very afraid!