Poem about the Gospels

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First of all, I'm not a fundie. And how would an agnostic know whether fundies have it all wrong? That's like me telling a Muslim how way-off he is when it comes to the Islamic deity.

And I do not choose to view God as purely malicious. Christians ARE allowed to do that, you know. Agnostics are hardly qualified to lecture others about their own faith.

You speak as though you are quite fundamentalist by arguing over very simple points, ad nauseum as the other person put it. You were using a brute force attack instead of using a reasoned examination of the piece.

How does an agnostic say that a religious person has it all wrong? He doesn't, when it comes to the beliefs themselves. When it comes to the contradictory nature of the books they base their beliefs on, they can do it quite simply, as I have already done in a limited few sentences.

The trick here is that the Bible doesn't just cater to your concept of Christianity, it is supposed to be the manual for all followers of Christ. Given that, there are many different interpretations, with many choosing what they will and won't believe, wrt to the written word.

So, long story short, I can lecture on faith as much as I want - I generally limit myself to the way people interpret written word, and comparisons thereof, and what the black and white words mean when they DO contradict each other.

Does this mean that the Bible is full of it? No, but it definitely DOES mean that there is something funny going on with the interpretation, that parts of it MAY be flawed, and that in all reality, many religious organizations ARE using the word of a brilliant man who meant to save mankind as a building block for their own tyranny.

If you want to be a tyrant, and try to use this politically correct bullying when someone broaches very real points, go ahead. Just realize, that others are not going to stand idly by while you speak of how great your ideas are, how sacred they are, and then call someone else down for expressing an opinion.

Lauchlin

Admittedly the Christian faith is hard to defend, but it's worth defending. It is one of the bloodiest religions in the world, but a lot has been improved since the Middle Ages.

I still can't get over you telling me the poet's view is right and mine is wrong. You'll defend his speech but not mine because your opinion is closer to his? How is that fair?

Someone says God is a horrible monster and I say God seems like a horrible monster, but really isn't.

I don't understand how the view of a loving God is construed as rigid and fundamentalist. Believing in a loving God is unacceptable, is it? According to you and your friend who does not speak for himself?

Opinions, opinions.

Naively stated? How can I improve that?

Improve what?

Was that post directed at me?

No.

Slow Mutant,

I am not saying that you do not have the right to believe, or that your beliefs are unjustified, nor am I saying his are wrong.

My issue is with your approach. Mike is making a valid point in his work, and your defense was that it was offensive to Christians, giving the impression that, even though his points are well founded, that he has no right to express such things, simply because they do not agree with the way many Christians look at their beliefs.

Again, I do not state that his opinion is right, and that yours is wrong. I state simply that it is hypocritical to say that what you believe is right, and make it as if he has no right to state opinions on religion. We are dealing with beliefs, not fact, meaning that you both have equal chance of being right.

What you fail to realize is that he is not talking about God, really, but the people who act in his name. Looking at the old testament, God was described as vengeful, and did horrible things. It is stated as defensible because he is God, we are his creations, therefore he can do what he wants.

I can even understand that part - however, the NT comes along, and he is suddenly a loving merciful God. Is sending someone to Hell for eternity, based on a finite life of sin, loving or merciful? I would say it is neither.

But that is the issue at hand - from a simple reading of the material, there appears to be various inconsistencies in the ideas being passed on. Could it be a simple matter of people misunderstanding the word of God, or poor interpretations over time? Definitely. Could it be made up to enslave the masses, encouraging people to focus on themselves as the ones at fault for all societies ills? Definitely. Which is the truth? No one can truly know, only a person's beliefs can dictate what it all means to them. There is no viable proof for either stance, that isn't severely biased in one direction or the other.

But that is neither here nor there. People can rationalize their belief system to whatever they want - they cannot deny, without being completely baseless and illogical, that there are issues with the Bible, and how it is written, as well as the approach people often take to picking the Bible apart to reason these issues out.

Your belief is not rigid and fundamentalist, understood. If your beliefs are true, then God DOES have every right to do as he will - another quirk of the definition of perfection. If He is perfect, then he is the definition of what perfection is, not lending himself to mortal definitions.

The issue I have, as I have stated already, is that you would come in and attack Mike's opinion instead of... I don't know... perhaps looking at the work and stating 'here are the problems with your estimation, based on God's word' and stating that you support his right to have an opinion, but cannot agree with it.

Instead, you came in and tried to make him reel back with fear that he had really hurt someone, and that somehow people should not be able to criticize religion, examine it, and point out possible flaws in a search for the truth.

You made it quite clear that you did not want to try and correct his misconceptions, but that you were more interested in attacking him because he had the 'audacity' to make a statement about religion. If you don't think it was an attack, I suggest you take a couple of deep breaths, clear your head, and go back and read what you wrote, leaving behind your 'moral outrage'.

You said his poem sickened you, that you thought it was offensive, and then stooped to name calling, and pedantic, argumentative tactics such as implying that the argument in this thread, that YOU started, should be left aside because YOU are the bigger man. Bullying again.

While debates can get very heated and involved, they are not supposed to deteriorate into things like this. That is why there is generally a mediator, though. You should look up flaws of logic or general logical fallacies, which are the groundwork for any debate. They would likely give you a heads up as to why this thread deteriorated the way it did.

Lauchlin

Lachlin

What you say is true and accurate, it is just and right.

Mike is lucky to have you as his mediator and friend.

I know that I was in the wrong, though stil not sure exactly what it was we were so heatedly disputing. I guess I just didn't want for him to spend his life with that kind of fear and ill-will in his heart. Oh so more valuable is the love & warmth of a good church community. These people can show Mike the love he may have written off as false.

Community is what really matters in this case, fellowship. The nature of God really is a secondary concern if you can enjoy fellowship with other human beings.

Please tell him what I've told you. I am bipolar and can be a nasty hateful person, but my core nature is kind and compassionate. I have a lot of flaws as a person and as a Christian.

No hard feelings, slowmutant. Thank you, Lauchlin, for your support.

When I was 21 I actually began a lifestyle I called "trying for God" that involved constant physical activity. The world was beautiful and I really wanted to show my love. During this time, I was disrespected by a coworker, hit by a car on purpose while walking to the store, and mugged at night. After that, I had seriously questioned whether God existed or loved me.

Several months later I began having nightmares. In one of them, God appeared yelling and called me a loser.

Why should I reward him for that?

What did God look like in your dream?

I'm so glad we've come to understand each other and can respect one another.

He looked like the old man at the end of 2001. And then he turned into a bull.

Interesting. What do you think the bull symbolized?

Strength, forcefulness, and virility are some common derivations of the bull image in a dream. And everything you saw in that dream is a construct of your own subconscious. Dream images are either quite meaningful or bereft of meaning entirely.

Can you tell me anything else about the dream?

The statements in this are perhaps not naive, poor choice of words.
I would say that the prose are a bit immature for the content, with a simple four line alternate rhyme. The problem with using these forms is that the verse can feel stunted, and sound almost like it should be stated with a drum beat. This is to be expected - you are not a poet by profession. All in all, it is a good start, you just need to get a bit more practiced in the literary arts.

The wording is not what I would use, but is effective in its imagery.

My impression of the poem, stanza by stanza.

My religion was ruined by pranks and punks
At the time I did not understand them fully
And while we give thanks to God our Father
We must also prepare for God the Bully.

People's ideas of the Bible strike you as contradictory, and it seems like some kind of trick played on people.

This Bully made humans in the interest of pleasure
He made us with siblings and fathers and mothers
But woe to his sight as he had finished his plan
For he could not create one without creating all others.

Kind of tongue in cheek - the God that these people describe sounds more like he created life the way he has out of some sick pleasure or amusement.

He observes the appearance of his fish for their quality
Finding only in strength what he feels to be sacred
While he exalts and champions and praises the strong fish
The Bully throws out the weak fish in hatred.

He does all that he can to make them look evil
You may not believe me, but for God it's a cinch
He arranges misfortunes to happen in sequence
And when you blow up, you look like the Grinch.

Again, focusing on the idea of God that SOME people advocate, and use against others, 'God' standards too high to live up to, creating us a certain way, knowing what we would do, and then blaming us for doing as we were created to do - if this is not so, then God is not omniscient, clearly.

To win others' hearts, they try harder and harder
They lift to gain muscle; they run to be thinner
But this very trial evokes his cruel laughter
For none of it matters; the gene is the winner.

He plays with their boredom and tempts them with drugs
To give them a manner he'd surely condemn
It makes them resentful and foolish and strange
So he can point and say, Hey, look, it's THEM.

Comparing the imposed standards attributed to God to those imposed by man today, these stanzas seem to point out that it would be fairly childish of anyone, much less a God, to set up a system, with all its intricacies, to work in such a fashion, just so they can be judged based on that system.

And while as creations we're born as a total
Our species this Bully has no qualm curtailing
He attributes the shapes of our bodies to choice
As he does also succeeding and failing.

We must gouge out our eyes and chop off our limbs
We must be sad to be happy when the happy turn sad
Worst of all, he prepares us a furnace of fire
To cook us forever if we make him mad.

Expanding on the last two stanzas, this pair puts emphasis on the supposed free choice that we have, which is followed by punishment or praise, implying that the choice was never truly 'free'. Almost as if to say 'do you think he literally wants us to maim ourselves, lest we be put in fire and brimstone for eternity'? Jesus did say you would be better off handless and eyeless in mortal life than have God condemn you, but in light of other things he said, it seems clear that his intention was not for us to harm ourselves.

Look back on the era to which we've adapted
He was your master, and you were his slave
He'd bore a hole in your ear and track where you fled
Now is your chance to stand up and be brave.

He yells with a thundering, belligerent voice
The sound of his word leaves unbearable pain
In the end, he'd tell you you'd ALWAYS BE SAAAAAD
An act upon which we must end his cruel reign.

These two stanzas bring much of this to a head, in an almost accusatory fashion, calling the people who have so shaped his views on Christianity childish and foolish, implying with a fairly cutting tone that they have reduced the idea of God to, as it was put in the movie Dogma, a sadistic father figure, from hundreds of years ago, shaking a finger and threatening to spank you if you step out of line. Does this sound like God? The God they speak of in churches and chapels? I think not... again, important to keep in mind here that the author does not seem to be pointing the accusatory finger at God, as the context was set in the primary stanzas.

He thinks he can scare us with threats of damnation
He thinks he's persuasive with nightmares and signs
But we'll not be content 'till the freaks can be happy
And we'll not follow doctrines 'till the Light of Truth shines.

I have read the Parables; I gave them some thought
While I do not trust all, there are some I adore
Do not delight in others' misfortune
Acknowledge the real and be kind to the poor.

The ending to this poem is actually quite artful - again, pointing to those who would twist the words of what many refer to as a benevolent deity, he points out that it is not honest or right to try to elicit the co-operation of people through coercion and vague promises. To simply say, believe this, and you will see in the end that this is right, is going against God's initial outlook that we had eaten of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. A wonderful climax, pointing out that, regardless of what the book may say in broad terms, filtered through the minds of potentially corrupt men, there is great truth that shines through.


Mike, is this kind of what you had in mind?

Slow Mutant, does this make any better sense? You need to ask yourself, I think, if you have ever tried to make people follow Christian dogma through threats and coercion, and the twisting of God's word to your own ends. If you have, it would explain why you were insulted from the beginning, if not, which I am hoping is the case, then this poem has no bearing on you or others like you.

Lauchlin

It is always my pleasure, if I can bring people to a deeper understanding of each other.

I am just happy that you are now seeing eye to eye.

In all reality, SlowMutant, I believe that you took it personally, and I can see why, without seeing that he was not implying that all Christians are like this. This is the impression I get, and I hope I am not further misconstruing/altering his words through my interpretation.

It just goes to show you, there are so many ideas out there, so many and so different, each with an equal possibility of being true, if you look at them objectively. Considering all of the different outlooks, as long as they bring us into harmony, and move us towards helping each other and good intentions, why do we fight over them?

By accepting that we have faith in something, and holding it to be true, and still allowing in your mind for the validity of the views of others, we make the world a brighter and bolder place, where we all sit back and realize that, if half of what is said about God's greatness is true, he will not condemn someone with love in their heart, and well meaning actions at their hands and minds.

Peace be with both of you,
Lauchlin

Lauchlin, I still have one question.

Clearly the author rejects and condemns dogma here, but is also waiting for the Light of Truth. Does this mean the Light of Truth is something our religion cannot even hint at? I'd be sad to think this was so, that even enlightened Christians are so far shy of the mark.

Also, I have never seen fit to force my beliefs on others. My initial response to Mike's poem was outrage, yes, but not dogmatic bullying. That's what Islam is for.

I think the poem meant more that we shouldn't sit back and wait for a possibility. My personal opinion is that if you do what you do in life through focus on some after life reward, it doesn't amount to much anyhow - but that is a VERY personal opinion, if you catch my meaning.

It may be easier to look at it in terms of keeping an open mind. The reason why Christianity, in some corners, has been twisted and used against others, for control and the like, is through bowing down to it unconditionally, as opposed to measuring the words with the rest of what we know to be true, not to mention a bit of common sense.

Christianity itself may be very close to the mark - it doesn't mean that the Bible is inviolate, and it definitely does not mean that those who state they are working in Christ's name, and who have in the past, are faultless.

One of the things we DO know is that absolute power corrupts absolutely - given that, we must take into consideration the power that the Clergy has, and so take their words with a grain of salt, at times.

We must, ultimately, rely on our own common sense, with a bit of guiding light, to tell us right from wrong. Again, Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, giving us the ability to tell right from wrong.

I guess the bottom line with faith is that we never do really know what the whole truth is - we just hope and believe that it is true, my hope being that we also try to be sensible about it. This is the only way to avert disaster.

Lauchlin