I'd like to share a few snippets of posted comments with you. The only context necessary is that it was a discussion over "Christian gays" in society. I'd like to say that there was actually a decent conversation about the church's response, but Mr. UberChristian (obviously not his real name) and his palls actually hijacked any positive even if misguided conclusion others might have been able to discuss. All of these are direct and exact quotes.
Mr UberChristian wrote:
I'm not trying to be funny. Maybe it's time to take the wife beaters and child molestors out back and beat the hell out of them. When we're through beating them half to death, let's dump them at the doorstep of the police station.Later he added:
I know we shouldn't necessarily go around beating up people as vengence [sic] is God's. But I pity the fool [i.e., gay person] I catch in the act. ... Maybe we could beat up people who treat a homosexual lifestyle as a sin far worse than anything else imaginable. I know we shouldn't, but still. Since individually we make up the "we" I keep reading about, perhaps we should become extremely vocal in pointing out to people that homosexual sin is one of many sexual sins. If they don't like what we say, then we beat 'em up.At this point I asked Mr UberChristian:
So, [Mr UberChristian], what's your track record on bringing gays to Christ? One? Two? Ten? Fifty? Or do you just beat them up on the way down to the altar until they swear to go straight?He replied:
I trust you're joking. With hate crimes laws ruling the day, I only beat up straight people.
A buddy of his thought that was funny. I really wasn't laughing at all. So I drafted a response. Then I decided not to post it. I have my reasons. But jackasses like this are the reason why Christianity continues to decline. The sad thing is they don't have a single clue as to the nature of their own problems. Keep in mind that he started out his tirade of violence with the comments "I'm not trying to be funny" but then was stupid enough to "trust" that I was joking about him either "winning" gays for Christ or merely beating them up until they hit the alter as straight men. Did I look like I was joking?
So, this was my unposted reply to his final comment:
[Mr UberChristian], you may trust what you believe and I will trust what I observe.
If I thought that the original comment was a stray if poor attempt at humor I might let it go. But there are comments from you all over this website that evidence this is a normal line of thinking with you. So I needed some time to sit and think on this a bit to see if I could provide a reasoned response. I can't—and if this gets me banned then so be it. I'm already the resident heathen with a penchant for too much academia in the face of blind faith, so this will be a bit out of character for me. I don't find myself easily offended by much. I'm used to being dismissed and "preached at" as to the wickedness of my ways and means. But being such a heathen doesn't mean that I don't know and understand truth despite your insistence to the contrary.
As I read your comments, Matthew 7.16 only applies to "other" people. It doesn't, apparently, apply to you. You can laugh this off, encouraged by those around you who think it's funny, but such comments and their dismissal sicken me. I like to keep in mind that those good ol'Christian men who went out of their way to bait, torture, and string up Matthew Shepard on a barbed wire fence like a scarecrow to die in a field were reported to have said that they only wanted to teach him a moral lesson about being gay. I guess, like you, they too felt "pity" for the fool even though they didn't actually "catch [him] in the act" (your words).
What I see is violence and the promotion of violence. You are more than welcome to consider it a joke or something for humor sake, but it comes from somewhere. Personally speaking, I think it comes from a literal adherence to exactly the opposite of Christ's message. I think it comes from Paul—that moral compass of fundamentalist Christianity—who, without question to anyone with eyes to read and a brain cell to rub together, mutated the message of a loving and righteous Christ to something grotesque and ugly, self-serving and radically intolerant of anything that can be cherry-picked from a list of sins, real or imaginary. And the church in its many forms has lived that message from the beginning and, as evidenced by your amusement at your own jokes of violence, continues to mutate that message to even more pathological outpourings of hatred. I think such adherence to a violent perspective is evidence of the internal strife Christianity actually brings to an individual rather than any evidence of God's love for mankind. It's an all too common attitude and behavior in Christians for it to be merely random.
But I'm sure you'll laugh it off as a joke, or laugh it off as me not seeing under the humor, or being too serious. [Mr UberChristian], you have absolutely no idea how serious I can be when it comes to human beings harming other human beings out of spite, love, or religion.
I don't believe it was you (though I no longer can find the reference so it may have been), but I recall the comment on someone's blog around here about how Muslims would prefer to slit the throat of our babies and then I read your comments here. I find mainstream Islam to far more compassionate toward the world at large than any handful of Christians that I can pick out of a random crowd, online or not. I find your comments, attitudes, and approach to Christianity to precisely mirror that of Wahhabism. Look it up if you're unfamiliar with it. But I'll give you two clues anyway— (1) conservative, reformist sect of Sunni Islam and (2) World Trade Center, September 11, 2001. Ring a bell yet? Are you finally on the same page here?
Go ahead and laugh some more, [Mr UberChristian]. I too think it's funny to suggest that my dislike for vegetarians—based on Karl Barth's comments of Paul considering such people "weak" and inferior—is enough to warrant beating them up until they see the error of their ways. Pity the fool I catch in the act of shunning a steak. Silly? Maybe. But when it is a pattern of behavior that can be observed—as it can be with Christians—then it's no longer silly but a very serious concern.
But, as you mentioned to [someone else] in some comments, you just don't know if this is the right website for you. Not Christian enough. Not radical enough. I'm sure it's not violent enough against "sinners" for your tastes. That being the case, we can thank your God for small mercies then. You want to know why I think Christianity is no longer the largest religion in the world? Because of people like you. This isn't about hate speech or hate crime legislation. I would bet that you and I agree on that issue. I find it ludicrous that we "protect" people's feelings through stupid laws. But I do see why our society has begun to do so. You are walking proof of that need. You're all about Paul and his "men [giving] up natural relations with women" spiel but I look at your "jokes" and I'm all about Christ and his "what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart." And I think it's quite obvious what's in your heart.
