[Peace-discuss] RE: The Christmas He Dreamed for All of Us

[C. G. Estabrook]

This collection of red herrings would do the late Fulton Fish
Market proud.  And it ends with a call for church discipline
that would warm the cockles and muscles (I know, I know) of
the heart of the new bishop of Rome ... alive, alive-oh. (Damn
-- the style is catching.)

Along the way it touches on a bromide -- that the Abrahamic
religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) share a peculiar
notion of deity -- and implies (I think) an unhistorical
reading of the Hebrew bible ("hideously draconian old
testament law").

But of course Christianity is threatening.  It's supposed to
be.  Jesus was executed by an occupying army as a political
threat, and announcers of the Christian good news were
apparently regularly regarded as "people who have been turning
the world upside down" (Acts 17.6b).

Christians and AWAREists should get back to that job.  --CGE


---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 11:25:03 -0600
>From: "Chas. 'Mark' Bee" <c-bee1 at itg.uiuc.edu>  
>> ...
>>>Why are people threatened by Christians? Because most
>>>Christians believe that their God is the only True God.
>> Yes, we believe that.  Why is that threatening?
>
>  Because it leads to calls to overthrow the US government in
favor of 
>Biblical law.
>
>  Because it leads to calls to stone homosexuals in the streets.
>
>  Because it leads to calls to allow women to die in delivery
wards.
>
>  Because it leads to calls to withhold funding for academic
institutions 
>based on religious tests.
>
>  Because it leads to eviscerating our crucial science
curricula in favor of 
>fairy stories.
>
>  Because it leads to withholding antiimplantation drugs in
emergencies like 
>rape and forcible incest.
>
>  Because it leads to real and fake Anthrax attacks and
murder of health 
>workers.
>
>  Because it leads to sectarian violence all over the world.
>
>  And, last but not least, because it's false.  Jews and
Muslims worship the 
>same God, despite current rampant religious propaganda to the
contrary, most 
>of it produced by 'christians' (note small C).
>
>  I'm a born-again Christian, Phil.  I've had to abandon most
of those folks 
>now, because a very, very large chunk of Christ's Church has
been straight-up 
>co-opted by Satan, whereby it falls back on hideously
draconian old testament 
>law and runs forward into desires for totalitarian rule
according to that law. 
>If many of what used to be Jesus' flock had their way, we
would be no better 
>than the repressive religious government these people think
they profess to 
>fight in the Middle East.
>
>  Until the Church gets a way to rein in its crazies and
clean house instead 
>of maintaining an 'every-congregation-for-itself' model, it
remains vulnerable 
>to every hate-spewing would-be monarch who can afford a
million watts of radio 
>waves or fire up a hateful internet site.  Every time it
falls into that trap 
>it becomes a portal for organized, unrepentant evil.  And
that's threatening. 
>Period.
>
>  I'm not saying you're part of the problem, this is by way
of explanation. 
>