sidewinder

I came across two religious tv programs last night.

The first was a Billy Graham crusade where at the end he invites people to come up and accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. I felt angered by this whole crusade. The fact that Graham is spreading lies and giving people false hope is wrong. The bottom line is that Graham cannot prove conclusively (like any other theist) that his god exists. So it's wrong to preach something claiming it to be absolutely true when you cannot prove it to be absolutely true. This also applies to all Christian preachers of all denominations.

It is my understanding that Islam does not have a program of trying to convert non-Muslims. They allow people to make a free choice to choose Islam. Christian preachers of all denominations should take a lesson from this and stop preaching what they cannot prove to be absolutely true. They should just allow people to freely choose Christianity without any sort of coercion.

The second program was on the local cable access channel. It was humorous and sad at the same time. This Christian woman was interviewing this medical doctor who was also a Christian. This doctor was claiming that "the Lord" had given him all these revelations about what he should be doing in his medical practice. Every sentence began with "The Lord told me to do..." I wonder why "the Lord" is so chatty with this guy but apparently doesn't want to talk to non-Christians. You know whenever I hear a person claim this type of communication with "the Lord" it makes me question the quality of their lives. I think their lives must be pretty empty and sad and they fill it up with this religious BS. I should've noted the doctor's name to ensure that I never went to him for any medical attention.

Captain Pedantic

I have noticed as well that God only talks to a fairly random selection of people. He's never said a damn word to me, but he seems to like talking to fairly mediocre personalities in Fuckknowswhere, Iowa (or something). I'm not saying I'm any less mediocre or anything, but why them and not anyone else?

I believe the most likely explaination is that people all get ideas, but some people interpret "getting ideas" as "talking to God". A small minority of these people are likely to be hallucinating.

But yeah. There's nothing anywhere which says you can't talk crap on TV. Advertisers do it as well. Essentially, you can lie about what a product does, totally legally. So there's really nothing anyone could do to stop TV preachers.

emotional

The difference between Islam and Christianity is in the aspect of spreading Islam, not in the idea - Islam is just as expansionist as Christianity. In Islam the goal is not so much to make converts (and at any rate, only polytheists and atheists must be converted; Jews and Christians can keep their religions), but rather more to impose Islamic law upon the world. The goal of Islamic expansion is more political than credal; Islam puts deeds in a higher position than creeds (unlike Christianity, which is THE religion for lazy people!), and "ruling by what Allah has revealed" is the fulfilment of belief. He is not a Muslim who just believes but doesn't observe the laws (the same is true for Orthodox Judaism).

Mageth

Fundamental christians believe that, unless you turn to Jeebus, you're damned to eternal hell. With this terrible fate as their foundation principle, it's not too surprising that some of them make a nuisiance of themselves preachin'.

Actually, I'm surprised that every one of them that believes this shit isn't out on some street corner or rooftop every day, proclaiming their gospel as loud as they can. This appears to be what Jesus commanded them to do. Oddly, most xians would think someone who actually did this was a little nuts.

I can only conclude that the power of Jesus to transform people that they talk about isn't as powerful as they'd like to believe. Very few xians I've met even come close to living how they should if the stuff they believe is true (or even if they believe it's true).

On a side note, a friend of mine had a little two-line summary of a Billy Graham sermon:

"Dayvid Slew the Bayah;
With Yoah Moneah, We Stay on the Ayah."

[ March 05, 2002: Message edited by: Mageth ]</p>