Dixon Carter Lee
Headliner
- Joined
- Nov 22, 1999
- Posts
- 48,682
My wife let slip to a neighbor, a nice, young woman, about 28, who teaches piano to kids, living alone, that I'm an atheist. They were just chatting, and it came out as an off-hand comment, and this poor thing looked at me VERY confused. She wasn't quite sure what an atheist was, but she knew it was something like "agnostic".
"So, it means you hate God?" she asked me.
My wife suddenly remembered that this girl is very Christian (Catholic, even), and thisclose to being born again.
"No." I said. "It has nothing to do with hate."
Later she told my wife that I'm now just one more person she has to pray for. She seemed so, um, sympathetic towards me (like most faithful do), as if I just hadn't heard the word LOUD enough, poor dear.
My wife is Christian, but has big problems with the Pope, and with the Catholic assertion that you can't get into Heaven without embracing Jesus. "What about people in a South American forest who just haven't gotten a copy of the Bible, yet? They go to Hell?" she asked this girl. "They'll have their chance at the Second Coming", the girl replied.
I have to tell you, as much as I respect people of faith, I still can't get around anyone seriously believing in the New Testament version of armagedon and apocalypse, outlined in the Gospels and in Revaltions. I understand that to have faith it helps to go for the whole package, but Revelations just reads like a Problem Child satire of Nostrodamus -- brilliant, evocative, but, really, just hysterically funny. As much as I respect faith I just can't take anyone who thinks a lamb with seven eyes means anything seriously.
To me it's like that old Tom Hanks movie where he starts thinking Dungeons and Dragons is real. Talking to this girl is now going to be like talking to that guy. I just can't get past people who talk about the Rapture and the Seventh Seal with such earnestness. It's like reading a role playing thread.
Are you Christian? How do you reconcile Revelations?
"So, it means you hate God?" she asked me.
My wife suddenly remembered that this girl is very Christian (Catholic, even), and thisclose to being born again.
"No." I said. "It has nothing to do with hate."
Later she told my wife that I'm now just one more person she has to pray for. She seemed so, um, sympathetic towards me (like most faithful do), as if I just hadn't heard the word LOUD enough, poor dear.
My wife is Christian, but has big problems with the Pope, and with the Catholic assertion that you can't get into Heaven without embracing Jesus. "What about people in a South American forest who just haven't gotten a copy of the Bible, yet? They go to Hell?" she asked this girl. "They'll have their chance at the Second Coming", the girl replied.
I have to tell you, as much as I respect people of faith, I still can't get around anyone seriously believing in the New Testament version of armagedon and apocalypse, outlined in the Gospels and in Revaltions. I understand that to have faith it helps to go for the whole package, but Revelations just reads like a Problem Child satire of Nostrodamus -- brilliant, evocative, but, really, just hysterically funny. As much as I respect faith I just can't take anyone who thinks a lamb with seven eyes means anything seriously.
To me it's like that old Tom Hanks movie where he starts thinking Dungeons and Dragons is real. Talking to this girl is now going to be like talking to that guy. I just can't get past people who talk about the Rapture and the Seventh Seal with such earnestness. It's like reading a role playing thread.
PROPHET: "Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six."
DRAKO THE WIZARD: "I invoke the Invisibilty Charm and escape the Beast."
O.O.C.
I forget, does the Anti-christ carry the Golden Shield of Wisdom, or did he lose that in the Doomed Forest?
Are you Christian? How do you reconcile Revelations?
Last edited: