Dear Anonymous American Soldier who left a comment today on my old 1/2/06 post, "Bible Verses for the Kids to Memorize", First, I adore you, and the Goddess adores you.
Second, I beg of you -- don't threaten me with Christian promo propaganda like "I only hope you will realize the truth in God's word before judgment day comes." It makes me laugh and giggle til my stomach ties itself into crampy little knots.
Third, I can't even begin to tell you how grateful I am you are willing to sacrifice everything to protect me and others. You are my hero in all caps. Whatever any of us feels about the justification for the war in Iraq, the fact is, in the primitive war-based world of today, we still need to protect ourselves at times against armed aggression. Without guys like you, we'd all be toast faster'n you can say "trip over my toes and tell me thank you."
I know you aren't paid to sit around and second-guess your commanders. You're trained to do as you're told. That's how our war-god armed forces work, and in our present culture, I seriously doubt our military'd work otherwise. So I deeply and totally honor your commitment to protect.
Third, you're right -- you are fighting for my right to believe what I want, even if you'd sooner drown what I believe in a bathtub as look at it. Your religion, however, is based on the idea that if I do believe what I want, it will shoot me down into a vast underground torture prison -- to be tortured hideously, with no release at any point in time. Ever. Pretty, harsh, dude, wouldn't you say?
You think you're fighting for democracy in Iraq (if that's where you are), but your religion is fighting to dump democracy here in the U.S. -- and around the world. Members of your religion are fighting as we speak to take over the U.S. and make it a theocracy.
If you want to learn more about this, root around and read a few of the other posts in this blog.
Sixth, as a soldier, I know you need to pray. But you're praying to a scam. I hate to break it to ya, dude, but your god is a primitive desert god-substitution pieced together by ancient con artists to scare the bejeezus outa people so they'd do their bidding.
Why not pray to a real deity, the Great Guiding Mother Goddess? She loves you no matter what you do, and takes you back into Her loving arms and womb when you die -- no matter what. Or, pray to god while you're at war (I know it's hard to change when you're under stress), but think about what I say here. And when you get safely home, consider switching to a real deity -- the Great Goddess.
Hate to break it to ya, but with your 'god' chances are big-time good you're going to Hell. Have you read the entire Bible? Do you know how many ways you can slip into Jehovah/Allah/Yahweh's Eternal Torture Chamber? What if when you die, you go to where you think you'll go? Whew, bud, are you taking some big risks!
Seventh, read the rest of this blog. Or better, buy my book, Switching to Goddess: Humanity's Ticket to the Future, which I wrote simply because I can't cover everything in one sitting about why the world needs to drop "God" like a hot potato and take up again with the only real deity we've ever known, The Great Guiding Goddess.
______________
thnx to one lucky guy for the foto; go HERE to see more.
I'm moving this comment, made yesterday on the 1/2/06 post, to this post. ~Athana
ReplyDelete_____________________
Highfalutin' Fancypants has left a new comment on your post "BIBLE VERSES FOR THE kids TO MEMORIZE":
I took him up on it. I clicked his link to BibleGateway.com and entered "war". It occurs 220 times in the King James Version used by the poster. Only 15 times does the word occur in the New Testament; twice in the Gospel of Luke - just once by Jesus, though, in analagously making a point about understanding the cost before making the commitment to follow him (Luke 14:31). "War" occurs 5 more times in the Epistles, and 8 times in Revelation.
I remembered a passage (Ephesians 2:14-15) that kind of suggests they might have been getting away from thinking and talking about war so much after Jesus had lived: "For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances."
So I looked up "peace" in the KJV. It turns up exactly 400 times in the KJV bible. It's in the New Testament 104 times. It's not attributed to Jesus in any any significant way, except when he said, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." (Matthew 10:34) He's going to mix it up a little down here, I guess. But he also said, "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. (Matthew 5:9) To me that seems like he wants us to try to make peace with each other. Maybe mixing things up is his business, not ours. It sure seems to end badly when we go mixing it up on our own, thinking he's got our back. Plus it's a lot harder to live in peace apparently, and he seems pretty big on taking the higher road, even it causes you some suffering.
I don't know. I'm not a theologian. I'm not even a Christian any more. I gave it up a long time ago when I figured out that I wasn't a sinner, just a person. I'm right there with Thomas Jefferson, "Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man". I'm no atheist, though. I am unequivocally an amonotheist, however. Monotheists have strange ways of believing their beliefs and they are often inhumane.
Posted by Highfalutin' Fancypants to Radical Goddess Thealogy at 1:15 AM
Dear Highfalutin'
ReplyDeleteThanks much for taking the time to count and analyze "war" and "peace" in the KJV. I have just a few comments to make about your excellent analysis.
First, the word "peace" in the Bible doesn't always mean the opposite of war. Half the time it means "talking" or "answering":
Genesis 24:21
And the man wondering at her held his peace, to wit whether the LORD had made his journey prosperous or not.
If you'd go through and sort out the war-peace's from the not-war peace's, you'd have "peace" appearing about as many times as "war."
Second, Jesus may say "blessed are the peacemakers," but why doesn't he ever say "Blessed are peace*keepers*, i.e., those who never start wars in the first place?
Why doesn't he ever say "Blessed are those who don't condone slavery"? And no fair saying "It's because he lived in a time that accepted war and slavery." The Bible is supposed to be the all-knowing Jehovah's rule book for living. If Jehovah really wanted us to be anything other than warmongering slaveholders, why didn't he chock his rule book full of admonitions about not starting wars and about not having any truck with the enslavement of other human beings?
And why *does* Jesus say "I come not to make peace but with a sword"? Metaphor? Certainly he could have found a metaphor other than a war weapon? If, that is, he's truly a man of peace and wants us to be as well?
"I hate to break it to ya, dude, but your god is a primitive desert god-substitution pieced together by ancient con artists to scare the bejeezus outa people so they'd do their bidding."
ReplyDelete-- I love it!
Thank you River Eden Doula for your positive feedback. It's so nice to have visitors to Radical Goddess Thealogy who aren't bitten and smitten by the [primitive desert gods] Jehovah, Yahweh and Allah. Come back any time!
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely wonderful post - it's great to see a respectful (and even loving) but firm retort like this.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to following your blog...
Nice to have you visit, ArachneDefiant, and thank you too for your feedback. When you become aware that the only healthy societies we probably ever had in the West were mostly pummeled by violent war-god peoples starting about 6000 years ago, you just naturally develop a great appreciation for trained soldiers who can stand up to such violence.
ReplyDelete