Tip #3 Evil Jesus
Jan. 20th, 2015 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingedbeastTake a moment and read the following line taken from a movie. Try to imagine the potential context from just the line.
"And, the degree with which you'll experience love and joy and the good things in life is the degree to which you will bend to my will."
If your mind's eye is anything like mine, you pictured the lighting dimming, the music turning just a touch ominous, and the camera, ever so slowly, turning to a Dutch angle as the line is stated. The viewpoint character comes to the dawning realization that the speaker is soooo evil.
The audience may already have come to this realization by having previously heard the speaker say things like "you're a woman, you're precious".
It's okay if you feel the need to take a shower after reading that line. This isn't live text.
The movie both of those lines came from is The Encounter. It is an Evangelical Christian movie, produced by Christians with the purpose, at least in part, of getting non-Christians to become Christians. Those words were spoken, unironically, by Jesus.
The context for the first line I gave you was as a part of a defense for biblical genocide, which only makes that line creepier.
The moral of this story is, Christians, you're making God and Jesus look evil. Not all, of course. This specific example is limited to a specific sect with a specifically literalist interpretation of the bible and, of course, a specific theological bent.
Still, this is a normal occurrence. The following was a part of a defense of similar biblical genocides. But, rather than focus on everybody, I focused on the infants. The conversation was focused on the acceptability of the genocide of those infants. The defense became... "Can you prove they were not evil?"
You want this to be absolutely clear. I wanted the same. "Now, you are arguing that infants were evil... Infants. Those tiny human beings that have yet to stop suckling mother's milk."
His response... "That is correct." Now, he had more explaining to go beyond that, but did not back step on the evil-babies defense one bit.
Again, I know this isn't all Christians that hold quite so extreme views on things like evil-babies or divine command. That's not the point.
Here's an exercise. Take what you attribute to God and apply it to anybody that is not God. Does it become creepy? Does it become horrific? Does it become downright evil? Then, for those of us who aren't already believers in the goodness of God or Jesus, it will be so when still applied to God.
"And, the degree with which you'll experience love and joy and the good things in life is the degree to which you will bend to my will."
If your mind's eye is anything like mine, you pictured the lighting dimming, the music turning just a touch ominous, and the camera, ever so slowly, turning to a Dutch angle as the line is stated. The viewpoint character comes to the dawning realization that the speaker is soooo evil.
The audience may already have come to this realization by having previously heard the speaker say things like "you're a woman, you're precious".
It's okay if you feel the need to take a shower after reading that line. This isn't live text.
The movie both of those lines came from is The Encounter. It is an Evangelical Christian movie, produced by Christians with the purpose, at least in part, of getting non-Christians to become Christians. Those words were spoken, unironically, by Jesus.
The context for the first line I gave you was as a part of a defense for biblical genocide, which only makes that line creepier.
The moral of this story is, Christians, you're making God and Jesus look evil. Not all, of course. This specific example is limited to a specific sect with a specifically literalist interpretation of the bible and, of course, a specific theological bent.
Still, this is a normal occurrence. The following was a part of a defense of similar biblical genocides. But, rather than focus on everybody, I focused on the infants. The conversation was focused on the acceptability of the genocide of those infants. The defense became... "Can you prove they were not evil?"
You want this to be absolutely clear. I wanted the same. "Now, you are arguing that infants were evil... Infants. Those tiny human beings that have yet to stop suckling mother's milk."
His response... "That is correct." Now, he had more explaining to go beyond that, but did not back step on the evil-babies defense one bit.
Again, I know this isn't all Christians that hold quite so extreme views on things like evil-babies or divine command. That's not the point.
Here's an exercise. Take what you attribute to God and apply it to anybody that is not God. Does it become creepy? Does it become horrific? Does it become downright evil? Then, for those of us who aren't already believers in the goodness of God or Jesus, it will be so when still applied to God.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-04 07:03 pm (UTC)And I cannot believe that you've gone through this. Have you gone through this so many times? OMG, it sounds like what I've encountered in my own experiences. Gracious. X___X
no subject
Date: 2015-02-04 07:34 pm (UTC)But, let's take the idea of a deity that finds everything you do to be worthless if it's not done with himself as the center of your very world. That's more common, more generalized (though not in all of Christianity), and, speaking as someone outside the faith, would not, if true, speak well of God.
Back in the late 90s, when I was in college and there had been a massive earthquake in India (correlation, not causation) one person online had claimed that God had done that as a punishment for the Dali Lama's claimed desire to make India into a Hindu nation. Yeah. He wasn't very accepting of the notion that he had just pained God as both a monster and a petulant bully.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-04 08:07 pm (UTC)And I see what you're saying. That absolutely makes God into a petulant monster & bully. I would also say that it has the potential to be rank with appropriation. That is, such a view disallows humans to view the tragedies of their lives through any kind of scope that's purely relative to them (be it, "There must be a sound reason for this" to even "Holy SHIT, life sucks right now and I hate everything.") because they should always remember that this is their punishment for...whatever another human being says it's a punishment for. Ick.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-04 08:18 pm (UTC)Seed of Bismuth
Also The Encounter (2010) film has two sequels: a 2012 film called The Encounter: paradise lost explaining why it's good to die by natural disasters. And a 2016 tv series, the eyes! oh jesus christ your eyes. they glow like white-walkers. Seriously find the poster and be amazed and terrified.