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Perhaps the Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg should quit while he is ahead. As he continues to milk the recent controversy involving Pastor Louie Giglio – whose inauguration invitation to give the benediction was rescinded due to past anti-gay sermons he preached – he opens himself and FRC up for scrutiny.
Which, of course, is perfectly fine with me.
Sprigg wrote a piece complaining about how Giglio was supposedly treated wrong for “merely” giving the supposed Christian view of homosexuality:
What many people do not understand is that when a conservative says “homosexuality is a sin,” it is a reference to their chosen sexual behavior, not to their inherent human dignity. Christian theology teaches that all people, including those with same-sex attractions, are created in the image of God, but it also teaches that all people—liberal or conservative, homosexual or heterosexual—are sinners who can be saved only by the grace of God.
If only it were that simple, I wouldn’t have a successful blog.
Sprigg conveniently forgets the time when he said gays should be exported out of the United States:
And I would be remiss not to mention the statements of FRC’s president, Tony Perkins, which speak for themselves:
So you see, when it comes to Giglio, Sprigg, Perkins, FRC, and so many other anti-gay entities, it goes beyond calling homosexuality a sin. They smear gay people as the “dreaded other” out to cause mayhem and destruction.
I naturally disagree with all of their statements, but especially Perkins’ last one. I’m a happy gay guy. And at times, I get downright delirious with joy.
That generally takes place every time I am able to demonstrate how hypocritical folks like him are.
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The duplicity of these characters — or the degree of cognitive dissonance their brains can handle — is staggering.
Of course, the cynical — or “realistic” — side of me says that of course they’re demonizing us as the fearsome “other” — that’s how they make those cushy salaries. The “all God’s children” part is just sugar-coating for the mainstream audience, to show that they’re not really a bunch of lying snake-oil salesmen.
I refuse to worship a god who allegedly created humans sick, broken and evil and then commands them to be good on the threat of eternal torture.
My rejection is more fundamental than that: The “we’re all sinners” thing doesn’t move me at all — I don’t see that I need to be forgiven for existing. I am what I am — deal with it.
Considering they are fairly educated individuals, you would think they would understand their past statements are all out there on the Intertubes.
Perkins is beginning to understand and is telling his ilk that others might actually listen:
http://www.glaad.org/blog/tony-perkins-warns-his-supporters-when-you-talk-people-might-listen
What is all this “rescinded invitation” business the Talibangelicals are talking about? I thought everyone had agreed to credit Reverend Louie™’s story: that he withdrew in order that we wouldn’t ‘press our agenda.’ Is that no longer their operative scenario?
You can’t play the persecution card if you voluntarily withdraw.
Most don’t believe that souls don’t start off as sick, broken and evil. They start off as imperfect and given time can become sick, broken and evil because God gives us free will and we, as a society and individuals, don’t always choose good or right.
Anyway that’s how I’ve always seen it.
Then again, I don’t believe in “hell” per se. So my view is non conventional for Christianity.
“Peter Sprigg exposes his anti-gay group’s hypocrisy again” – sounds like the Task of Sisyphus.
Can we see how often Peter orders shrimp, mussels or other seafood to see how often he violates the basic tenets of his religion?
Which is it Peter? And why does someone’s sexuality matter to you?
Those who scream the loudest are often the biggest hypocrites. Does that make you a mo in hiding?
I frequently wonder how many people denounce teh gayz on Sunday morning while munching down a bacon sandwich. That will get you executed in the world according to Leviticus too.
The primary premise of every major western religion (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) is that God created the world, created the human body, created the conditions into which all of us throughout time and space are born into, with the death and burial of the body being the “reward” everyone reaps for God supposedly creating all that we see and feel and experience, but something called the soul survives and moves on, somewhere. What if this premise is false, as in that a God created all this, the conditions for so-called “sin,” the death, the destruction, the suffering, the pain, the fear, the doubts, the fleeting “pleasures,” the short-lived “triumphs,” the wars, the conflicts, all that crumbles into dust eventually and inevitably? (Note: an atheist believes that some “God” creating anything is false, because of their belief that there is no God, the body and the world are as they are, and there is nothing else).
Now read the four Gospels, specifically paying attention to what Jesus is reported to have said, as well as some statements made about him by his followers years afterward. What if Jesus was teaching that a God didn’t create any of what I mentioned in the previous paragraph? What if this teaching by Jesus, that God didn’t create hell or the conditions for hell/sin, was what got him in trouble with his own orthodox religious authorities, leading them to conspire to silence him, permanently, leading them to accuse him of doing the work of the devil, of being a blasphemer and heretic?
For instance, someone wrote in the four Gospels that Jesus, called the Son of God, overcame the world, overcame sin, overcame death itself, but western religions teach and believe that God is all-powerful. IOW, how could the Son of God, as Christians believe Jesus is, “overcome” that which God, the Father, created, or at least created the conditions for? Wouldn’t this make the Son of God more powerful than God, the Father, the so-believed omnipotent one? This doesn’t make any sense…unless something else made this world, something that made it in defiance of God, or maybe something trying to “out create” God, making something different, something “?better?”, a world that trapped that something else, requiring a “salvage operation” by the Father, requiring “messengers” to enter into the “trap” to report the “Good News” that God, the Father, is only Love, totally loving, has never condemned anyone, and willed none of this to seem to happen? Was this what Jesus came into this world to teach, that death has no power over life, that hate has no power over love, that the darkness cannot put out the light, that hell cannot ever triumph over heaven. But for us to all learn this, we must forgive ourselves for ever having believed otherwise, and we must especially forgive ourselves for blaming God for all of this. (Note: atheists actually are one-up on the orthodox religious folks regarding this aspect of forgiveness because in not believing in a God (or spirit, or hell, etc), why would they blame one for all of this? IOW, I’ve never heard any atheist proclaiming, falsely, that a wrathful God was behind a devastating hurricane, or earthquake, or tsunami, or war, or whatever disaster caused widespread destruction and death).
I’m just suggesting that any student of Christianity re-read the four Gospels, but through the lens of Jesus teaching something so radical that his own religious leaders first dismissed and then disowned him and his followers, many of them fellow Jews. I can find numerous passages that indicate that Jesus didn’t view this world the same way his religious leaders did and that Jesus would never blame God for any of what seems to be happening in this world. He loved. He forgave. He accepted anyone into his welcoming arms. He challenged hypocrisy. He didn’t get angry with those who put his body on the cross, nor did he appear wrathful later. He overcame the world. He overcame “sin.” He overcame death itself. And all he asked was that we choose to do likewise, love-wise, light-wise, everlasting life-wise. And of one thing I’m certain, Jesus would have never condemned, or ostracized, or attacked any homosexual, or any other person judged by the orthodox religious types (and even some conservative atheist types) of being a “sinner,” not lovable, not acceptable, not welcome in “their” society or culture or religion. Jesus taught only love, knowing love is what God is, and ultimately what we all are. Peace.
One of the two most fundamental and most heinous of christianity’s basic precepts – we are all born evil, all sinners. To evangelize anyone toward a belief in christianity, you have to convince your listeners that they are evil and sinful, because otherwise the rest of their story doesn’t have any substance.
But equally bad is their solution to this sad state of affairs: their deity requires a blood sacrifice to atone for our evil state of being. Think about what a “blood sacrifice” is – how is it different than the Mayans cutting the hearts out of thousands of people? I cannot see the difference.
The basic precepts are just wrong. They are stone age concepts.
Absolutely correct. Modern Christianity is in fact a rebelion against everything that Christ said. They equate wealth with rightousness, when Christ did the opposite. They judge and condemn, which He never once did. They create ‘us and them’ relationships, when He gathered all together in love. They allow the powerful to buy the world, when He said that the meek shall inherit it.
They are not Christians, because they don’t follow Christ. They are Pharasees. Every time they call themselves Christians they slander his name. It’s no wonder so many people are waking up and calling all of this bullshit, because it is.
That doesn’t make you any less messed up than them. “Free will” is nothing but mental masturbation. A ridiculous philosophical concept to explain why the immorality and ridiculousness that’s at the core of Christianity. A vain attempt to explain away the unexplainable. It falls apart when looking at it for more than a minute.
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And fundamentalist Christians definitely belief people are born evil. Heck, they call newborn babies “little bundles of sin”. Calvinists (and nearly all major American fundamentalist are some form of Calvinist) are even more extreme and think that even the good that people do is really evil because it’s done for selfish reasons and not to glorify god.
It’s a human form of scapegoating. Heap all the sins of the tribe on an animal and drive it into the desert to die. Disgusting. You can’t kill someone and make all your bad deeds go away.
I fully agree that the core concepts of Christianity are nothing but inhuman barbarism. And of course god being omniscient knew how it would turn out all along.