I'm a Christian and I agree with everything Rubang said.
More specifically I am a Christian Existentialist who is slightly more loyal towards Catholicism. I grew up with a Protestant background. I like how Catholics are very pro-science and pro-intellectualism but dislike how they are still coming out of the closet on sexually-related issues (priests having sex, priests being female, contraception, etc.).
Really, the thing Christianity in America needs to do is quit being so damn hostile. I mean seriously, was Jesus such a hostile guy? He never came across as an arrogant asshole to me when I read the Bible. He was a lot more like a calm philosopher in the vain of Socrates or Plato who thought society could discuss its problems and fix them while at the same time improving itself morally. He wasn't even hostile towards non-believers. He was more friendly with non-religious people than many of the most prominent religious official of his time.
What is accomplished by hating gay people? What is accomplished by hating immigrants? What is accomplished by hating Muslims? What is accomplished by hating atheists/agnostics? What is accomplished by hating people who practice Christianity differently than you? What is accomplished by hating people who practice premarital sex?
Well I will tell you one thing it accomplishes, it pushes more and more people out of the churches. Even people who may be against those things in theory aren't always comfortable with such hostile rhetoric.
At least on the abortion issue I can understand where some of the hate comes from. I mean "killing babies" isn't exactly something anyone should take lightly. But on every other issue, seriously, just chill the fuck out. The world isn't coming to an end and society isn't growing more depraved. I hate to break it to you, but society has ALWAYS been depraved.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
