Christian tropers, join together!

Speaking of Sodom and Gomorrah, I sometimes find myself quoting Genesis 18:32 to the depressingly many people that agree with Westboro where I live, including my own father (who was yelling at me for not supporting Mitt Romney, and claimed that war, famine, fire, and brimstone would erupt if Obama was reelected).

edited 13th Aug '14 8:22:17 PM by BaffleBlend

The part where Abraham convinces God to spare the cities if ten righteous people were to be found? Why?

Edit:

edited 13th Aug '14 8:22:49 PM by PersistentMan

Has anyone else been getting entangled in the front of How TRUE Christians Should Approach Depression and Suicide recently? -_-

I remember reading that the current Pope was known to be a midnight street philanthropist as a cardinal and is rumoured to continue to do so in Rome.

And he wears a costume as his day job, soooooooo... :U

To try to convince my father that the United States won't literally explode if gay marriage was legalized.

Didn't know Gay marriages were Made of Explodium

edited 13th Aug '14 8:30:30 PM by PersistentMan

Yeah, my dad's kind of a complete humiliating stereotype when it comes to things like that.

He'd probably ship me off to military school or something if I ever told him how much more harm he's doing than good.

...Speaking of which... What is the WBC up to nowadays since Fred Phelps died and all that?

I imagine a True Christian approaching someone and saying... You'll suffer forever and ever and ever the moment life leaves your body if you do that my friend, and there will be no one to ease you suffering.

edited 13th Aug '14 8:39:26 PM by PersistentMan

I don't know and I'm pretending not to care. They don't deserve our attention. They've driven more people away from Christ forever than Richard Dawkins, Friedrich Nietzsche, and The Amazing Atheist combined because of all the attention we let them have.

edited 13th Aug '14 8:43:24 PM by BaffleBlend

I cannot tell if Nietzche was actually an atheist, he seemed really confused in matters of personal religion.

You could say they are doing what they believe it's right, so there's that.

edited 13th Aug '14 8:49:40 PM by PersistentMan

The most dangerous villains are the ones who believe they're in the right.

(I can't remember who said that.)

(I'm talking about WBC, not the other three, though I don't hold a very high opinion of them either.)

edited 13th Aug '14 8:52:06 PM by BaffleBlend

We should just go full Imperium of Man on Earth.

On a related topic, is there a word for theological bigotry on both sides? Like, that would describe what both WBC and TAA do? A word like "racism" and "sexism", but for beliefs?

x? The self-considered True Christians in this situation are mostly saying "Depression is a spiritual ailment! No one is depressed who feels joy in the Lord, so you should just choose joy!" and "Suicide is selfish, think of how your friends and family will feel!"

To which likely responses are "I would choose to feel joy if I could choose to feel anything without medication" and "Relief, most likely, even if they don't admit it to themselves".

Fortunately there is a lot of recoil against the bloggers and I've actually seen at least one youth pastor asking for advice about how he should respond to people who come to him for counselling, so in the wake of bitter rage I've been feeling pretty cathartic but still very frustrated and weary.

edited 13th Aug '14 9:04:20 PM by Noaqiyeum

The Parable of the String.

Greeting, me brethren! Didn't know there was such a thread here. Now i'm glad to join in. Hope this thread is open to us eastern Orthodox fellows too.

Of course. We're not the Spanish Inquisition.^note I actually know almost nothing about the Spanish Inquisition.

You should know that no one expects them.

edited 14th Aug '14 9:01:59 AM by PersistentMan

Pray for Ferguson.

As someone whom God decided to make genetically bipolar...

Yeah, I've encountered these people. "Oh, a Christian should NEVER have to be in a mental health clinic!" and "Christians never get into so much despair they commit suicide!" — Part of me is lit on fire to EDUCATE their ignorant asses. Part of me wants to beat them 'till they bleed and hold their heads in a vat of cat-vomit and force them to drink.

Honestly, peoples' religious views aside (because God knows that people of all religions and agnostics and atheists can be just as pig-stupid), I've been feeling LIT ON FIRE BY RAGE lately. To the point that I'm pretty much ignoring Jesus' warnings about anger being equivalent to murder because the only thing that's made me happy and able to calm down is imagining myself reaching through imaginary Internet portals to do terrible things to idiots. Of course, knowing that I'm not *actually* doing those things.

It's like the old adage: Don't piss off a writer unless you want to see a character based on yourself brutally murdered in their next book.

I don't even want to hear from "normals" right now. You don't know the struggles of the "insane" and cannot know them until you go a bit off the rails yourself. If you say anything insensitive or ignorant about depression or suicide, MAY GOD DEAL WITH YOU BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT ME TO.

If it helps I was really depressed back there for a while. And then I found out I might have Autism. And things have started getting better now.

Not that helpful I know. And don't fell bad about getting angry at the stupid and ignorant. You can join me and do it together.

edited 14th Aug '14 11:42:14 PM by chaosconsortium

Is There Hope?

On a highly-related topic, I've been feeling guilty because I'm so constantly depressed and angry. It makes me feel like I don't have enough faith, or worse, that I might only be saying I believe without actually believing, which makes me fear that I'm a hypocrite, which makes me question myself and only makes things worse, rinse and repeat.

So, yeah, the "true Christians"' attitude is very dangerous. Because once that idea creeps into your head...

edited 15th Aug '14 6:58:40 AM by BaffleBlend

Look I'm just going to say this now since I've dealt with the same thing myself. No, you are not a hypocrite for getting depressed and/or angry. You are not any less of a Christen for having negative emotions. It's how you handle those emotions that matter.

Even Jesus got angry when he saw the moneylender in the temple. Even Jesus had doubt in the garden of Gethsemane. But Jesus never gave into his emotions and let them take control. You do not have to feel guilty for having negative feelings, it's ok we all have them. It's making sure you can handle them and not letting those emotions defeat and consume you you. And if you can't handle them that's Ok too. That's what prayer is for. So God can give the the strength you need to carry on.

At least that's my take on it.

edited 15th Aug '14 8:32:41 AM by chaosconsortium

Thanks. I needed to hear that.

Word.

I run on an all truth is God's truth system - basically that just cause something's secular doesn't mean it's automatically invalid. I get why a lot of Christians run the other way, tho, because science + atheism can be really damaging. and, I mean, I wouldn't trust psychology before the 90s either.

but I think - yeah, chaosconsortium has it down. Your emotions are your emotions. God loves us despite everything that we are - He gets it, you know? His love doesn't stop because you stop being perfect, because we've never been perfect. It's not about perfection, it's about the relationship.

...heh. we should start a Neuroatypical Christians band. Hi, my name's Mari, I'm ADHD.