There is nothing "evangelical" about fundamentalism
Jan 26, 2020 21:51:26 GMT 10
Post by Captain Nemo on Jan 26, 2020 21:51:26 GMT 10
Disclaimer, I'm not trying to force sway anybody on this thread into believing a certain way, I'm only giving my insight on this subject that is up for you to decide whether to take anything stated in this thread to heart or not.
I'm sure that just like myself, you are most likely sick of this theo-socio-political culture war within society going on between progressive left-wing secular humanists and traditionalist right-wing fundamentalist Christians.
I know that many users here on Popedia lean within one of these categories, most in the progressive column but a few in the traditionalist column, but even these users I see seem like they're also sick of this culture war as well.
I myself am a liberal (Swedenborgan) Christian with libertarian political views, and believe that morality and legality should be treated as separate entities, which definitely includes a complete and total separation of church and state, so that bad actors in a state of power cannot masquerade their oppressive legal systems under the guise of a moral or Godly system in order to maintain power over the public.
This leads into the main point of this thread at hand - There is nothing "evangelical" about Fundamentalism Christianity, or Christofascism.
It's no surprise if you've spent any time on sites such as Google or Yahoo that Christofascists have spread on the internet like wildfire ever since Donald Trump came into the scene. These are mostly individuals within the Catholic or mainstream Protestant sects of Christianity whom go around using abusive tactics such as coercion, intimidation, and isolation towards atheists, agnostics, new-age spiritualists, or even liberal Christians in order to try to get them "on their side", scaring them either with threats of hell or end times prophecy, telling them who they can or can't associate with or what they can or cannot do with their free time, how their lifestyle should be, how they should vote, etc.
On the surface, these Christofascists may delude themselves into believing they are evangelizing and doing what they believe to be God's work, but I can see right through them to their true colors. They may deny it, but deep down, they get a kick out of scarring people on the internet, they get a hint of dopamine by doing what they do, whether they admit it or not. Deep down, they know what they are doing is pure bullying, not evangelism.
I'm going to detour a bit into my life story related to this, so skip to the next paragraph if you're not interested, but I fell victim to these people back in late 2018, where I was constantly reading posts from shitty manipulative fundamentalist sites such as GotQuestions, GodAndScience, and UnlearnTheLies (quick word of advice, stay away from these sites). I was trying to be holy, trying harder than I should've, but deep down, I just wanted to run away, I wanted to blast AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" and tell those fundementalists to fuck off, yet was also constantly freaking out about my own salvation. Luckily, out of all of this, I discovered one spiritual site that relived me of all this, called Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life, created and managed by Lee and Annette Woofeden. Through them, I discovered Swedenborgan Christianity, as well as the YouTube channel offTheLeftEye, and since then, I have now been able to seek a healthier, more free relationship with the divine. I owe Lee and Annette Woofeden big time for their website and what it has done for me personally, bless them for what they've done.
Now, that's just a detour for my life story, back to the main point.
You cannot scare or manipulate people into "repentance" - I put "repentance" in quotations because many of these fundamentalists only want people to repent in a certain way, but regardless, the point remains.
If you try to use scare tactics or manipulation in order to try to "convert" certain people, chances are that all you're doing is pushing these people away from religion rather than towards it. Even if some people do give in, they'd only be doing it out of a sense of obligation, and deep down there would be an "if I could I would" mentality, that they would commit these sins if it weren't for their conviction by the so called evangelical, so on the outside it may seem like you succeeded in pulling these individuals towards religion, but deep down you actually pushed them away from it.
This is precisely why I say that there is nothing "evangelical" about fundamentalists, because they aren't evangelizing practically anyone, but are instead just straight out bullying or abusing them, and deep down they know it.
They're pushing people away, not towards, religion, with their demeanor.
Repentance comes from the heart, not from a head trip.
Repentance deals not only with our outer nature, but our inner nature as well, both within the conscious and the subconscious mind.
True repentance occurs when one recognizes that sins are sins because they are destructive tendencies and choose to live a more virtuous life because they want to, not because they feel they are obliged to.
In other words, they analyze the sins for what they are, so that they understand why they shouldn't commit to them, and why a virtuous life free from them is much more preferential.
Achieving this sort of mindset is not hard to do. Sins such as murder, theft, extramarital or non-monogamous sexual relations, valuing purely sexual relations over committed loving relations, libel, disrespect towards elders/superiors, addiction (figurative idolatry), and desire to obtain what is not yours (covetousness), when one looks at these behaviors and recognizes the physical and mental harm that they cause both to oneself and to those around them, and looks inward to a higher spiritual power and sets apart time in their personal life (Sabbath) to focus on that higher spiritual power, whether it be through home prayer or church service in order to help overcome these bad desires, and recognizes that the higher spiritual power is guiding them in this endeavor, and that they should honor this power and uses it to promote good and not to promote evil (using the Lord's name in vain), and recognizing that when they start on this journey that it won't be easy at first as they're still too used to their old reckless ways, and that they will need to walk a narrow path, or enter through the narrow gate, until it widens and you become more accustomed to living a more virtuous life, and no longer long for the destructive ways of old. All of this ties into both the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament as well as the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament.
To do all of this is what true repentance is, and it's what makes one a follower of Jesus Christ, as you're being a follower of what Jesus Christ taught.
Whether one call themselves a "Christian" or not isn't what's utmost important. Just following the material institution of Christianity does not necessarily make one a follower of Jesus Christ. Not only that, but Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, etc. that align themselves with truths similar to what Jesus taught can be followers of Jesus Christ, whether or not they realize it. The Bible states that it is Jesus, not the material institution of Christianity, that saves people.
Now, what about homosexuality? Read this - Homosexuality, the Bible, and Christianity
Anyways, what are your thoughts on this subject?
Also, please be respectful in the comment section. Thanks.
I'm sure that just like myself, you are most likely sick of this theo-socio-political culture war within society going on between progressive left-wing secular humanists and traditionalist right-wing fundamentalist Christians.
I know that many users here on Popedia lean within one of these categories, most in the progressive column but a few in the traditionalist column, but even these users I see seem like they're also sick of this culture war as well.
I myself am a liberal (Swedenborgan) Christian with libertarian political views, and believe that morality and legality should be treated as separate entities, which definitely includes a complete and total separation of church and state, so that bad actors in a state of power cannot masquerade their oppressive legal systems under the guise of a moral or Godly system in order to maintain power over the public.
This leads into the main point of this thread at hand - There is nothing "evangelical" about Fundamentalism Christianity, or Christofascism.
It's no surprise if you've spent any time on sites such as Google or Yahoo that Christofascists have spread on the internet like wildfire ever since Donald Trump came into the scene. These are mostly individuals within the Catholic or mainstream Protestant sects of Christianity whom go around using abusive tactics such as coercion, intimidation, and isolation towards atheists, agnostics, new-age spiritualists, or even liberal Christians in order to try to get them "on their side", scaring them either with threats of hell or end times prophecy, telling them who they can or can't associate with or what they can or cannot do with their free time, how their lifestyle should be, how they should vote, etc.
On the surface, these Christofascists may delude themselves into believing they are evangelizing and doing what they believe to be God's work, but I can see right through them to their true colors. They may deny it, but deep down, they get a kick out of scarring people on the internet, they get a hint of dopamine by doing what they do, whether they admit it or not. Deep down, they know what they are doing is pure bullying, not evangelism.
I'm going to detour a bit into my life story related to this, so skip to the next paragraph if you're not interested, but I fell victim to these people back in late 2018, where I was constantly reading posts from shitty manipulative fundamentalist sites such as GotQuestions, GodAndScience, and UnlearnTheLies (quick word of advice, stay away from these sites). I was trying to be holy, trying harder than I should've, but deep down, I just wanted to run away, I wanted to blast AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" and tell those fundementalists to fuck off, yet was also constantly freaking out about my own salvation. Luckily, out of all of this, I discovered one spiritual site that relived me of all this, called Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life, created and managed by Lee and Annette Woofeden. Through them, I discovered Swedenborgan Christianity, as well as the YouTube channel offTheLeftEye, and since then, I have now been able to seek a healthier, more free relationship with the divine. I owe Lee and Annette Woofeden big time for their website and what it has done for me personally, bless them for what they've done.
Now, that's just a detour for my life story, back to the main point.
You cannot scare or manipulate people into "repentance" - I put "repentance" in quotations because many of these fundamentalists only want people to repent in a certain way, but regardless, the point remains.
If you try to use scare tactics or manipulation in order to try to "convert" certain people, chances are that all you're doing is pushing these people away from religion rather than towards it. Even if some people do give in, they'd only be doing it out of a sense of obligation, and deep down there would be an "if I could I would" mentality, that they would commit these sins if it weren't for their conviction by the so called evangelical, so on the outside it may seem like you succeeded in pulling these individuals towards religion, but deep down you actually pushed them away from it.
This is precisely why I say that there is nothing "evangelical" about fundamentalists, because they aren't evangelizing practically anyone, but are instead just straight out bullying or abusing them, and deep down they know it.
They're pushing people away, not towards, religion, with their demeanor.
Repentance comes from the heart, not from a head trip.
Repentance deals not only with our outer nature, but our inner nature as well, both within the conscious and the subconscious mind.
True repentance occurs when one recognizes that sins are sins because they are destructive tendencies and choose to live a more virtuous life because they want to, not because they feel they are obliged to.
In other words, they analyze the sins for what they are, so that they understand why they shouldn't commit to them, and why a virtuous life free from them is much more preferential.
Achieving this sort of mindset is not hard to do. Sins such as murder, theft, extramarital or non-monogamous sexual relations, valuing purely sexual relations over committed loving relations, libel, disrespect towards elders/superiors, addiction (figurative idolatry), and desire to obtain what is not yours (covetousness), when one looks at these behaviors and recognizes the physical and mental harm that they cause both to oneself and to those around them, and looks inward to a higher spiritual power and sets apart time in their personal life (Sabbath) to focus on that higher spiritual power, whether it be through home prayer or church service in order to help overcome these bad desires, and recognizes that the higher spiritual power is guiding them in this endeavor, and that they should honor this power and uses it to promote good and not to promote evil (using the Lord's name in vain), and recognizing that when they start on this journey that it won't be easy at first as they're still too used to their old reckless ways, and that they will need to walk a narrow path, or enter through the narrow gate, until it widens and you become more accustomed to living a more virtuous life, and no longer long for the destructive ways of old. All of this ties into both the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament as well as the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament.
To do all of this is what true repentance is, and it's what makes one a follower of Jesus Christ, as you're being a follower of what Jesus Christ taught.
Whether one call themselves a "Christian" or not isn't what's utmost important. Just following the material institution of Christianity does not necessarily make one a follower of Jesus Christ. Not only that, but Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, etc. that align themselves with truths similar to what Jesus taught can be followers of Jesus Christ, whether or not they realize it. The Bible states that it is Jesus, not the material institution of Christianity, that saves people.
Now, what about homosexuality? Read this - Homosexuality, the Bible, and Christianity
Anyways, what are your thoughts on this subject?
Also, please be respectful in the comment section. Thanks.
