Something Is Seriously Wrong With the Bible Belt (And No One Wants to Say It)

[Some Schmo]

When people tell me their somewhat "original" ideas about their various god, I just think two things:

- More creative writing, fan fiction mostly
- A Star Trek convention where the nerds argue over Capt Kirk's motivation at some point in the series (I make fun of that, and yet the nerds actually have more evidence for their fiction)

ETA: In the context of this thread, I think the problem is religion, specifically, and it butting heads with modernity and the free flow of information. The honest people are leaving the assholes behind, making the churches look worse and worse all the time. People like ajax just sound insane, because nothing he says matches objective reality, yet I imagine he's getting a lot of his BS from his circle of influence, and to him, he's normal.

*shrug*

[Jersey Girl]

See if I have got this right. They believe that they can trick God into forgiving them for sinning without heartfelt remorse?

Do you think that they know what they're doing is wrong in the here and now? And they're doing it anyway thinking they'll just ask God to forgive this particular sin? Like God is their get out of hell free card?

The Jersey Girl translation of the New Testament

For I was hungered, and ye "taxed other people and stole meat for me": I was thirsty, and ye "voted to have the government seize a coca cola factory from the owners": I was a stranger, and ye "confiscated a public children's gymnasium to house Kevin Graham's cheap tax free illegal immigrant work force." It doesn't matter that you yourself voluntarily gave absolutely nothing of your own bank account nor the fact that you haven't done a lick of work for the past 10 years. It's enough that you voted to take from working people and redistribute as you saw fit. Enter thou into the kingdom of Bernie Sanders and Josef Stalin.

Good luck trying to get Bernie to do any actual work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcOQO6O5P_c

I have NO blessed idea what you're trying to say in your above there.

[Jersey Girl]

The Jersey Girl translation of the New Testament

For I was hungered, and ye "taxed other people and stole meat for me": I was thirsty, and ye "voted to have the government seize a coca cola factory from the owners": I was a stranger, and ye "confiscated a public children's gymnasium to house Kevin Graham's cheap tax free illegal immigrant work force." It doesn't matter that you yourself voluntarily gave absolutely nothing of your own bank account nor the fact that you haven't done a lick of work for the past 10 years. It's enough that you voted to take from working people and redistribute as you saw fit. Enter thou into the kingdom of Bernie Sanders and Josef Stalin.

Good luck trying to get Bernie to do any actual work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcOQO6O5P_c

I have NO blessed idea what you're trying to say in your above there.

I've thought better of this so I'm going to make another run at it for you, Ajax.

Does it occur to you that one of God's purposes for what is going on in the world today might be to bring scripture to the forefront of public discussion to spread the Gospel? If you think that could be the case then what do you mean to do by re-writing and thereby corrupting scripture with your own fingers on a device and publish it to the internet to misrepresent another human?

Do you realize that there are guests from all over the world reading this board from the outside?

Do you think that using scripture as a model for such a post is helping to spread the Gospel?

And finally, Ajax, whose voice are you listening to?

[Chap]

If you are going to believe in God, I am afraid you are going to have to take him as you find him, not as you would prefer him to be.

The problem here, if I may my good Chap, is that nobody actually stumbles across a god. As far as we can tell, it's still just an idea. If there is anything we could say about a god (should one actually exist), it's that it likes to hide from us. But that's all anyone could definitely say, because we "have found" nothing else.

The point is that ajax or anyone else who claims belief in an actual god can't help but create the god perfect for them, or as you put it, the one they prefer god to be. It's just how it works. I've never seen an exception to that rule.

Since we are on a Mormon discussion board, I am referring to the Abrahamic deity, belief in whom tends to go along with the idea that his nature and wishes are evidenced in the collection of texts called in English 'The Bible', which for Christians includes the writings collected in the so-called 'New Testament'. In discussions with ajax18 and others who claim a variety of Christian belief, I think it reasonable to expect them to explain how the claims they make about their deity and his wishes are consistent with the Biblical evidence. Because of the tendency of people to make a deity in their own image (you are certainly right about that), that consistency is often absent, and I think it worth while to point that out.

[Jersey Girl]

When people tell me their somewhat "original" ideas about their various god, I just think two things:

- More creative writing, fan fiction mostly
- A Star Trek convention where the nerds argue over Capt Kirk's motivation at some point in the series (I make fun of that, and yet the nerds actually have more evidence for their fiction)

Don't they give you scriptural references that support their assertions or at least describe (I guess tell you the story of) a situation in scripture and it's outcome that leads them to believe a thing about God?

ETA: In the context of this thread, I think the problem is religion, specifically, and it butting heads with modernity and the free flow of information. The honest people are leaving the assholes behind, making the churches look worse and worse all the time. People like ajax just sound insane, because nothing he says matches objective reality, yet I imagine he's getting a lot of his BS from his circle of influence, and to him, he's normal.

*shrug*

I left organized religion several years ago. Not sure what year it was but I can tell you the reasons that led to my decision. Since that time I have been to a Hindu funeral service, Catholic Church for a funeral, Lutheran Church several times for Christmas Candlelight, a Cowboy Church for another memorial service, and a Celebration of Life in a funeral home...I think the pastor was Protestant.

What puts me off most about organized religion and church membership is church politics, immaturity, arrogance, rudeness, lack of self awareness, and lack of appreciation for others. I can't say that happens in every church, but it did in mine. Those are the reasons I left after what was to be the final straw. It's much like the Sanhedrin that Jesus so strongly condemned.

Notice how many of those above events I named were for the passing of a loved one or loved one of a friend. I go for the people in pain to join in honoring their loved ones. Christmas Candlelight Service is my favorite thing I do almost every year. I go because I can worship through song and the reading of Luke 2. So...for the people who are suffering and to sing.

Otherwise you can find me singing in my kitchen or out on the property talking to God, crying to God, and I have been known to yell at God.

You know what I just realized something. You know how you said all the honest people left religion and only the assholes are left? That sounds eerily like the situation where some MAGA folk and Republicans in general totally bailed and look what's left of it now. I'm not saying all of the folks left are assholes but think about how the whole MAGA scene has devolved over time. During his first term he had some decent people in the administration. Now he's got unqualified and craven sycophants and crackpots. It's like giant pot of clown soup and the clowns are dangerous.

I'm up in the night babbling again. I'll try to shut it.

[Some Schmo]

I left organized religion several years ago.

I wasn't sure about that, but I strongly suspected it. If you're a person with actual integrity and care about the truth, you will leave your religion at some point.

I'll say it again: you have to keep lying to keep your religion going. Honest people must leave eventually.

[Some Schmo]

Since we are on a Mormon discussion board, I am referring to the Abrahamic deity, belief in whom tends to go along with the idea that his nature and wishes are evidenced in the collection of texts called in English 'The Bible', which for Christians includes the writings collected in the so-called 'New Testament'. In discussions with ajax18 and others who claim a variety of Christian belief, I think it reasonable to expect them to explain how the claims they make about their deity and his wishes are consistent with the Biblical evidence. Because of the tendency of people to make a deity in their own image (you are certainly right about that), that consistency is often absent, and I think it worth while to point that out.

I understood that was where you were coming from, and I agree that if you're going to claim to live your life based on a fiction, you should at least live consistently with the fiction.

I was mostly pointing out that everyone who holds a god belief has to have at some point created that god in order to support the belief. And of course, since it's up to them, they will make the most personally favorable god possible.

It's fascinating to me that every god thinks exactly the way the person talking about him thinks.

[Jersey Girl]

I left organized religion several years ago.

I wasn't sure about that, but I strongly suspected it. If you're a person with actual integrity and care about the truth, you will leave your religion at some point.

I'll say it again: you have to keep lying to keep your religion going. Honest people must leave eventually.

In my case it wasn't about lying to keep religion going. I could't ignore the ways some of the people behaved towards others. Among them, Mormons, finances (pushy rude people working on a building campaign), and failure to express gratitude for the the work of a faithful and dedicated volunteer who went the extra mile for the job she took on for the church's children. No that one wasn't me. She was one of my preschool moms whose children I taught that in the church taught a preschool choir and I assisted her. Not one person thanked her. Not churck folks in charge OR the parents of the children she taught. And as we were packing up I saw her wiping away tears so I thanked her myself by pointing out all the ways her program was top notch as I would any of my staff. She was an AWESOME teacher.

See how it still bothers me? Also folks from the building fund showing up on my doorstep without notice (when I was shampooing the rugs no less) and trying to get me (who wasn't paid year round at the time) to hit up my non-member husband to donate. As for the Mormons...I'll make a long story short. I went to the youth pastor's "class" on cults held after worship service one Sunday. I wanted to make sure he was teaching with accuracy. The way he presented was immature and snarky. I stood up more than once to correct him and express how sincere LDS youth were in living out their faith ("on their little bicycles" I swear I could have smacked him). How oblivious can you be to fill our church youth's head with an attitude towards other youth?

The first incident involving LDS was when my kid and an LDS friend came to BOTH churches on Wednesday night and one night the LDS girl left MY church in tears because one of our blockheaded youth activity leaders said (to everyone in the class) that Mormons don't believe in God. I've written about that several times on this board. I scheduled a meeting with the youth pastor for the very next day and I'm pretty sure I delivered him a sermon of my own.

That's when I ended up on the boards, Schmo. My friend had asked me a question about my pastor ("Did he say you couldn't be my friend any more?") that made my attenna go up. So...I set out to prove my pastor wrong in his tone deaf remarks regarding Mormonism and to try to figure out if her Bishop could exercise that level of authority over his church members.

Babbling again. I just wanted to be specific here.

And also Schmo I see SO much corruption in churches today. I don't see me ever returning to organized religion. Ever. I'm not saying that a little church in the neighborhood is corrupt. It's the big churches. My church was the little neighborhood church and now it's almost a Mega church.

It's just like politics. It IS politics. And a crapton of greed.

[Some Schmo]

It's just like politics. It IS politics. And a crapton of greed.

Absolutely. I mean, this is another answer to the question "What's wrong with the Bible Belt?" I don't really see a separation of church and state for these people. They believe the two should be intertwined, since religion and politics are inextricable from each other for them.

And that only compounds their need to lie about anything they have to lie about in order to maintain their fact-free opinions.

[Res Ipsa]

I have NO blessed idea what you're trying to say in your above there.

I've thought better of this so I'm going to make another run at it for you, Ajax.

Does it occur to you that one of God's purposes for what is going on in the world today might be to bring scripture to the forefront of public discussion to spread the Gospel? If you think that could be the case then what do you mean to do by re-writing and thereby corrupting scripture with your own fingers on a device and publish it to the internet to misrepresent another human?

Do you realize that there are guests from all over the world reading this board from the outside?

Do you think that using scripture as a model for such a post is helping to spread the Gospel?

And finally, Ajax, whose voice are you listening to?

Not Jesus’s.