Posted on 12/21/2012 2:24:54 PM PST by NYer
I was asked by the Young Adult group in my parish to address some ads on our local buses and subway trains here in Washington. The members of the Young adult group found the ads offensive and troubling, especially since they were aimed at kids. The ads are posted by the American “Humanist” Association (AHA) and are indeed aimed at kids and teenagers. The focus of the message is “Kids without God: You’re not the only one.” I have altered the ad at the upper right of this post to avoid listing its website but as you can see God is represented by a seeming angry and/or accusing finger and a bemused teenager who says “I’m getting a bit old for imaginary friends.”
OK, so lets start with the necessary disclaimer. This is America and an folks are free to post billboards and promote ideas, even unpleasant or obnoxious ones. That said, I wonder if Christians would get away with the kind of demeaning and dismissive tone evident in these bill boards by the AHA.
Consider, first of all the timing of these ads, Christmas. Just about every year, the AHA runs its ads right during the Holy Season of Christmas and Chanukah. I would argue that this amounts to an intentional form of rudeness that the secular media would never accept in return from Christians.
Think, for example if, on “Earth day” (usually happens in April) Christians were to announce that, as far as we were concerned this had become an annoying celebration of the secularists, druids and others. And therefore we sought to ridicule their holiday by burning leaves, throwing trash around in public, or on our property, or turning all our lights on in protest. Perhaps too we might engage in personal ridicule on earth day, scoffing at them, calling them “tree huggers” and erecting posters encouraging people to kick a tree instead. It is unlikely we would be ignored by the media if we acted thus, on their special day, and ridiculed “Earth Day” and those who celebrate it. Rather we would be excoriated by the press and others for this.
And yet, many secularists and atheists rudely ridicule, mock and seek to put an end to our observance of Christmas. I am willing to engage secularists and atheists on matters of my faith, and I have done so on this blog. But acting, as many of them do, at the times of our sacred feasts is just plain rude, it is shameful behavior.
Next, note the ridiculing nature of the poster at the above right. The slogan equates faith in God with being childish and immature, as if faith in God were no different than “believing” in Santa Claus or some other imaginary friend, as little children do, who don’t know any better.
This dismissal of the belief in God as childish is insulting to the billions of people on this planet who DO believe in God. Belief in God is not childish, and God is not an “imaginary friend” for those of us who believe. I did have imaginary friends as a child, and I know the difference between what they where, and who God actually is. I am not stupid, and others who believe are not stupid, or childish, or immature.
I and others who believe, do so by the gift of faith and also because of the manifold evidence of God’s works and presence in our lives. I live in a world, that to my observation has obviously been designed and thus presents strong evidence of having a designer, that obviously has existence and thus has a source of that existence. Further, when I pray I am heard. I talk to the Lord every day, and I hear from him every day. I know and experience his presence in the depths of my soul, in deep contemplative experience, and in my daily life. And the Lord Jesus Christ is changing my life. His word and plan for my make sense to me, and have summoned me to a magnificent and joyful life. His gospel is a prophetic interpretation of reality that has have ordered my life and given meaning and explanations that comport with my lived experience. I have tested God’s promises and teachings in the laboratory of my own life and found them to be true.
Now an atheist or secularist is free to question me on any of this, and I understand that they doubt my experience or would what to explain it away. But the disrespectful nature of this AHA ad is rude and insulting. It presumes that I and others who believe are merely to be regarded as simpletons, clinging to childish notions and fairy tales. I am doing nothing of the sort. I am no fool, I am not a child, and God is not “an imaginary friend” to me. My life of faith is rooted in real experience and the manifold evidence of having tested God’s word, having found it true and wise, and seeing my life changed by God. I also have the lived experience of thousands of other acquaintances who believe, who know and encounter the Lord in their lives and experience his powerful presence.
There is also the lived experiences of billions of others, currently on this planet and those who have gone before who testify to the existence, presence and power of God in their lives.
Ridiculing all of us as simpletons, and implying that the ancient Catholic, Christian and Jewish faith amounts to no more than have “an imaginary friend is not only insulting and rude, it is uninformed. The intellectual, spiritual, liturgical, Scriptural and artistic legacy of the Judeo-Christian faith is both rich, and rooted in careful thought and balance. I would also add to this the many other great religious traditions on this planet. And while I do not agree with many of their fundamental tenants, the great contribution of these faith traditions to civilization and culture cannot be denied and should be respected.
Dismissing this great and rich tradition of faith and more than implying it is childish comes across as boorish, bigoted and unschooled.
Further the “pointed finger” supposedly representing God is also cartoonish, unbalanced and disrespectful to the great religious tradition. It is true that God does confront injustice, wrong-doing and sin in the Holy Scriptures I revere. But it is also true that those same scriptures teach and reveal that God creates everything in Love and provides for his children and creation. He is merciful and forgiving. He respects human freedom and summons us to follow him freely, not under compulsion. In his love he entered our world and joined his sufferings to ours, and repaired the ancient breach, reaching out a saving hand (not just a pointed finger) to all who take hold of it. The God I know and have personally met, loves immensely, and when he does seek to correct me, I experience it as an act of love just as the Scriptures assert (e.g. Hebrews 12). God has a passion to set things right in and for those whom he loves. Here too, the cartoonish simplification of God by the AHA is inaccurate and unschooled.
To summarize, the bill board, ad campaign of the American Humanist Association comes off as rude, boorish and bigoted. It steeps its message in a ridiculing notion and implication that billions of believers throughout this world and many more stretch back into time are nothing more than children who believe in an “imaginary friend.” The utter lack of respect for the rich cultural tapestry, careful intellectual tradition, and lived experience of billions of believers in this ad shows the AHA is little more than uniformed an unschooled in the traditions and faith they try to criticize. The timing, tactics and content of this bill board by the AHA show them to be far from the humanitarian principles they claim to promote.
There is nothing humanist or humanitarian in their ad at all. It is plain and simple, “Rude,” just plain rude.
>>No one has proven me to be in error about anything.<<
The Bible documents the creation of the universe. Man has yet to explain it, let alone, replicate it. When he can, you’ll be right.
Oh, is God your daddy? I see. Don't feel bad, a lot of people don't have a name on the ol' birth certificate where "father" goes.
A yes. A “different standard of evidence.” You said a mouthful there, didntcha?
That is also why, in the Bible, the penalty for raping a virgin is no different from merely having sex with her: you either pay and marry her, or get stoned to death. If the girl can prove she put up a fight, she might escape stoning, but she'll still be sold as a wife to her rapist. That's the Middle East mentality at work, then and now.
And by the way, it's not an "analogy." It's an observation. There is no provision for rape in the Bible because it is not and was never a particular concern to the Middle Eastern male mind. If pointing that out makes me racist, I really don't care.
Beating and killing your own child for disobedience is also a feature in the Bible and the modern Middle East. Again, something that the Western world came to view as "not good."
Also note the Western revulsion for cruelty to household pets. Nothing about that in the Bible. We are a different culture. Why you want to embrace something that still smacks of the same primitive, tribal violence as their modern day descendents in Egypt, Syria, and "Palestine," I do not know.
And yes, the Jesus story is pure spiritual socialism. Rather than burn in Hell for a certain time until your sins are paid for... you get the free ride. Just like we don't like anymore to work and save for what we want, we don't want to pay in the imaginary afterlife for what we did.
You look, take an honest look at all the liberal Christians in this country, and you will see they have more quotes from Jesus on giving away money, taking care of the poor, the evils of being too rich, than anything we have on how the government should not provide social services. The fact is, your God is the god of the Arab world, your Jesus is a socialist, and your world view in incoherent and silly.
And millions of mass-murders have used guns. What's your point?
Factually you are ignorant of the Bible. Jesus would not have been a socialist and there are many, many passages to confirm that.
The most important fact is this: Jesus did not get involved in the government, and would never endorse a system that teaches people to worship or rely on the government for their sustenance.He taught that we were to rely on Him for that: “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things (food and clothing, etc.)shall be added to you.” Matt.6:33. He did not spend His time preaching about the evils of money. In fact, compared with the scriptures about the need to turn away from sin, the scriptures that speak of the poor are few.
You speak of the numbers who are turning away as though they are correct and have gained more wisdom; in fact they are disobedient and are part of the Great Apostacy predicted by Jesus.
Liberalism is immaturity, cloaked with the pretense of moral and intellectual superiority.
Biblically any sex outside a marriage is adultery. That would include rape. So it is covered by the 7th Commandment.
Oh, yes, I forgot that Freepers know Jesus's mind through and through. You know what he would do and what he wouldn't. And you know just how to interpet what he says to support your view, and ignore what doesn't.
Why? Because he is an projection of your own super-imposed over a legend which is mostly invention created around the time of the Siege of Jerusalem. That's why liberals have a liberal Jesus and conservatives have a conserative Jesus. Jesus, like God, is whatever you want him to be. Jews wanted him to be the savior of Jerusalem. Greeks wanted him to make a nice afterlife. European colonalists wanted him to help conquer foreign lands. Women want him to stand up for women's rights, socialists want him to throw out the money-changers who were making a profit, hippies want him to advocate everyone to chill out, homophobes want him to condemn gays, gays want him to love everyone... and all of them find ways to define him to suit their purpose.
Just like you.
And by the way: rape and sex are not quite the same. Unless of course you think the jogger in Central Park “had sex” with several assailants who beat her so severely she almost died.
He that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death. -- Exodus 21:
Put them to death: the verb is used metaphorically to signify, to deprive a thing of its power, to destroy its strength.
10 Commandments: Exodus 20:13 Thou Shall Not Kill
So you're wrong again. Tell you what... if you get the universe thing figured out before Christmas, PM me and we'll tell the world together.
Americans just go through scriptures and say "Oh, God didn't really mean this. And he didn't really mean that. And he changed his mind about this." Until the Bible says whatever you want it to say.
Gays do the same thing. They can explain away anything about homosexuality. You quote them something, they pick a different quote that "nullifies" it. All you religious folks are the same, from the muslims on down. You simply decide that God wants what you like. You do as you please, and you just know that God approves.
I think you mean you have rejected the Jesus of the Bible because He isn’t what you think He should be. Hence your outrage over “Thou shalt not rape” not being the eleventh commandment.
And another thing. Look at how many Christians there are in the world. Look at the Christian populations of Africa, Europe, Asia, South America, Central America. Look at the Catholic church. The vast, vast majority of Christians find Socialism to be perfectly compatable with the teachings of Jesus. Only a tiny handful, the white American conservative branch, just knows... KNOWS... that everyone is wrong except them.
Then they say atheists are arrogant. Heh.
>>No, my dear, it’s not a metaphor. You want it to be, so you say it is, and you think that because you said it, well, then it must be. But it’s not. When Abraham was willing to kill Isaac, no law was being broken.<<
Sorry sweetie. It was a metaphor. Since Exodus 20:13 precedes
Exodus 21:17, it cannot be interpreted any other way.
Who told Abraham to offer his son and why?
So if two verses contradict each other, you pick the one you like and call the other a metaphor? That’s convenient. Not as tidy as the Muslim “go by the 2nd one” rule, but far more... elastic, shall we say? The most useful religion is the most elastic, isn’t it?
>>So...<<
So so so. You lost. Muslims follow the Bible?
You didn’t answer this:
Who told Abraham to offer his son and why?
And your dodge of the whole universe thing hasn’t gone unnoticed.
I’m on my way to another Christmas party.
Bye for now.
Yes, He is.
(Yours too)
Have a Merry Christmas, APL. Since it is God who opens the heart, it is entirely possible that might happen to you some day.
For all I know, you’re one of His future kids.
After all, it’s all a gift for any of us. There’s no boasting about it. He is the One who has done it. It’s not like I’ve informed Him.
So, may the Unseen Hand be powerful in your life, APL.
Yes. Different than mathematics, for example.
However, let me ask you this. Can you prove that OJ was guilty? How did the jury see it?
Again you are making sweepint assumptions about what Christians believe without really knowing.
On the one hand you insist Jesus is a myth and on the other hand you tell me what you know He said and believes. You cannot have it both ways.
If it is all a myth you cannot logically be angry over what the Bible may or may not say, or what people believe.
I’m done.
But I'm willing to be "done" too, because if there's one thing I've found about dealing with Christians, it's that if you answer them, they call you rude for daring to speak up on this forum, and if you don't they accuse you of having run away from their Bright and Shining Truth.
The other thing I've found is that arguing with them, even if only to show you haven't retreated, is like arguing with a mental patient firmly convinced that he is Napoleon. He has an answer for everything. The answer makes no sense most of the time, but he'll go on forever because he's a mental patient and believing in some fantasy is his whole identity.
What you object to is not a problem of belief or disbelief because people who claim to hold no belief in God do as much damage in the world as those who do. Maybe more.
The problem is one of being human and if you believe there is no divine, then the only place you really have to look to is within yourself.
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