Hey folks,
Keeping with the Christmas Eve theme, I found this absolute idiocy of an article by Tony Hendra of the Huffy Post. The Huffington Post- "Tony Hendra: Time Out From Atheists and Evangelicals: Putting the Real Christ back Into Christmas."
First, after reading this whole tripe of an article, it is obvious that he has no clue as to the truth. Second, he wants you to believe that Christians are "racist hate-mongering" people out to get you. Problem is, he is the one spewing hatred for them.
Here is just some examples of this absolute garbage,
"Christmas has really been getting it in the teeth this year. On one side, atheists bashing away at the poor old feast, blaming it for every evil committed in this or any other century; on the other, fundo Evangelicals and Baptists using it as yet another proxy in the racist hate-mongering that is the lifeblood of so-called conservatives."{Laughing} OK,
"For the abolitionists, Christ is and has been the cause of incalculable bloodshed over the last two thousand years, as well as the oppression of women, the brutalization of the poor, the genocidal enslavement of people of color - any color - and environmental devastation. (The list is a lot longer than that, but it'll do for now) For the atheists it's Blame Christ First.
To do them justice they've got a point. Because that Christ is also the Christ of the fundos. The fundo Christ is only The Man of Mercy, Gentle-Jesus-Meek-and-Mild for the fundos themselves. The rest of us he hates. Anyone from gays to Muslims to feminists to commies to astrophysicists and biologists to you, me, Arianna, Susan Sarandon, George Clooney and especially Jimmy Carter. The fundo Christ will arriving here any day now, to butcher all of us by the billion. A Christ of vigilante justice, vengeance and prejudice: a Christ dedicated to the shedding of blood, oceans of it, the more barbarically the better. In short a non-Christ, a pseudo-Christ, an anti-Christ."
See what I mean folks? You could be blind and STILL see the hatred dribbling from good old Tony. But then it just gets ridiculous.
"But we're talking about something far more compelling than that shadowy thing, historical accuracy. We're talking about a great story and its true meaning and the vast influence they have on people. There's one question about that story which should be asked this Christmas (or Yuletide or Hanukah or Kwanzaa or however you celebrate the winter solstice), a time when so many people - well-intentioned and ill-intentioned - are still talking so blithely of war, killing, self-defense and revenge."
So he thinks HE knows the real Christ. {LOL}
"What according to the story, did the real Christ have to say about war, killing, self-defense and revenge?
As far as I can tell from a close reading of the Gospels (including a couple of the Synoptic Gospels), nothing good. If there was one thing Jesus was adamantly against, it was violence of any kind. Sure he got hot under the robe once in a while; he overturned a few tables in the Temple, he withered a fig-tree, he made some poor old pig-farmer's pigs dive off a cliff. But he never raised a finger to anyone.
In fact he was radical on the matter; in defiance of - or as he put it in fulfillment of - the Jewish tradition in which he was raised of an-eye-for-an-eye, of justifiable revenge, he forbade revenge, even self-defense. We are to turn the other cheek when struck. We are to love our neighbors even our enemies, as ourselves. And he meant it: when the time came and his enemies seized him to lead him away to certain death, he refused to defend himself or even to let his followers defend him.
Here's the uncomfortable truth, one Christians have spent seas of ink and forests of paper, trying to get around: there is no way that someone who calls herself or himself a Christian, who believes in Christ's words and emulates his life and actions, can fight in a war, support a war, carry a weapon, pack heat, shoot back, or take revenge."
He has absolutely NO clue. Jesus NEVER taught that you should just lay down and take it. He NEVER taught war bad or good. He was always more concerned with YOUR one on one relationship with Him and God. He said to love your enemies. Feed your enemies, and do good toward them, for VENGEANCE is mine saith the Lord. By doing this toward your enemy, you are heaping hot coals on their head. You are increasing their punishment.
At least he got the point about Jesus getting mad right. Sounds familiar. Then think about his apparent heros, "Arianna, Susan Sarandon, George Clooney and especially Jimmy Carter." {LOL} But you HAVE to love this absolute stupidity,
"In my book I imagine Christ returning in our time, a poor self-educated Latino man from the Bronx. His messages are as radical as they were the first time around. Towards the end as his Christian enemies close in, he talks to an audience of tired and battered infantrymen recently returned from war, outside the gates of Fort McGuire in New Jersey:
"Love your enemies. I do.
"I have loved every soldier on every side of every war ever fought. I have loved every child of God murdered by another child of God. Because - make no mistake - whenever one of my children kills another intentionally, it's murder. Whether it's from 30,000 feet or 3, it's murder. It's no less murder than creeping into their bedroom while they're asleep and beating them to death with a tire-iron.
"Murder is not a mission or a calling or a career. If you go to West Point or the Air Force Academy to get a degree in it, it's still murder. All the fancy words your superiors come up with: retaliation, extreme prejudice, overwhelming force, collateral damage, smart-this and pin-point-that cannot alter that all these words mean murder.
"Wearing a uniform does not to stop it being murder, doing it for your country does not stop it being murder. Clicking on an icon a thousand miles away does not stop it being murder. Sending a command to a robot does not stop it being murder. If your sergeant tells you to do it it's murder, if you are told by your officer to tell an enlisted man to do it, all three of you commit murder. It's murder if a court absolves you of all wrongdoing. It's murder if a man of God blesses the weapon you murder with. It's murder if you vote for someone who tells others to murder in your name. It's murder if the one you murder has murdered.
"And if you say God told you to murder - I say to you it is not God you are listening to.
"Thou shalt not kill. There are no exceptions." "
That would be "Thou shall not commit MURDER." The taking of an innocent life. We kill things every day. We can kill someone in an accident. What God was referring to is Murder. {Sigh}
Just more anti-war trumpery.
Normally I would not give a halfwit, ignorant , self important twit like this, a second thought. This is why I believe in and will fight for the "Freedom of Speech." So we know who these people are. I know I’m giving him more publicity then he deserves. I understand that. But I felt that this was important to point out to you that just this Friday, going into one of the biggest Christian Holy Days there is, that this poorly informed, hate-mongering writer, gave us yet another example of Christian bashing tripe.
You know my old friend once told me, "It is better to sit silent and be thought of as a fool, then to stand and speak and remove all doubt." Congratulations Tony. For standing and speaking, you ARE the Idiot of the Week. Oh, by the way, Merry Christmas.
Peter
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