angelo

This is hilarious especialy for me. I can relate to the story as I'm a sales rep. Best comedy article in ages.

-Jay-

I received an e-mail newsletter on Christmas day from a friend of a friend who is on a mission trip in Nepal. She was just stunned that "Christmas was just an ordinary day" to the Nepalese. She sends such messages out periodically, and the second most common theme besides "I'm doing the Lord's work to bring Jesus to these people" is "they're not like Americans".

(I have numerous issues with the actions of Fundamentalist Christian Missionary groups stomping on non-Christian cultures, but that's a different thread.)

regards,

NinJay

lpetrich

As to weird Bibles, check out the Personal Promise Bible, a Mad Libs version of the New Testament, Proverbs, Psalms, and the Song of Solomon.

And it really must be said that I would have thought such stuff to be satire until I saw who was coming out with it.

I wonder when believers in other religions are going to do stuff like that, but I doubt that there will be very much of it in Islam anytime soon. Can you imagine what would happen to a publisher who came out with a Mad Libs Koran?

Sheshbazzar

My Christian relatives and acquaintances have stacks of bibles, the texts of which they have never read, being fully content with being spoon-fed on whatever line of theological drivel it is that their local church espouses.
Yet they are inclined to endlessly go around preaching their distorted versions of texts that they actually have little if any genuine familiarity with.
They regularly misquote, revise and modify vaguely recalled sayings on the fly to lend an appearance of support to whatever are their theological buzz-words, or to whatever it is that their latest flight of pop-apologetics requires.

Any serious discussion of the actual texts and the context of the verses, is futile when the so-called christian has never even read the text that is so blithely being abused and incorporated into their logorrhea.
Talking with such becomes a endless task of tediously attempting to correct their mangled and out of context misquotations (and if their mistaken "quotation" and erronous assertion is uncovered, and proves to no longer provide any support their favorite error, they become flustered and angry) and anyone who does not immediately go along with their bogus theological/apologetics assertions is suspected of being an agent of the devil.

I have no problem with Atheist who have not studied up on all of the weird twists and turns of the thousands of denominations differing versions of correct "Christian Theology"
After all, if it is acceptable for Christians to go around preaching their distorted drivel without even reading the Bible, then it certainly ought to be as equally permissible and acceptable for Atheists to discuss Theology without reading all of that dogmatic drivel that has been written in Theological texts.

Indeed, it appears that it is far better that a man not get bogged down and entrapped in that avalanche of dogmatic Theological texts and the scree of ever shifting apologetics.
A working knowledge of Christian Theology is of little remaining value to those who have shook free of the chains of its lying claims.

Well was it written; "if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant."...this applies equally to all.

Steven Carr

I'm sure that 2,000 years ago when Christians listened to people preaching, they never misquoted, revised or modified what they heard....

Or perhaps they did.

Gamera

Another example of how anecdotes don't make good arguments. Clearly there are people well versed in Christian theology -- some of them Christians and some not. The sine qua non of any criticism of Christian theological texts is that the critic at least read the stuff and digest it in some significant sense. Regrettably, many critics (like the otherwise clear thinking Dawkins) don't.

The fact that apologists don't read the texts and support them is no excuse for the critics to be equally sloppy.

Gamera

Not necessarily. The Hebrew and Christian scriptures are totally separate texts from the theological discourse that sprung up around them. There is no necessary correlation between the four gospels for instance and the Nestorian controversy in all its weirdness (and indeed I would argue that Christian theology is exactly not the discourse of the scriptures, but a counter-discourse, but that's just me).

Sheshbazzar

Hmmm, Scripture and Theology, is it the slime that is spead upon the garbage? or is it the garbage that is spread upon the slime? either way it is all a weird, slippery, and stinking mess.

Gamera

To call 1 Cor 13 slime or garbage says a lot about you. No doubt you find Hamlet trashy.

angelo

What a waste of a life. Oh well, as long as she is having a good time. Each to his/her own I suppose. She sounds a bit inocent though and very gullible.