“You trust in yourself and what you can do. Your heart feels like an empty pit of darkness and purposeless because you walk around this earth not even knowing why you have breath in your lungs. You spend your life trying to fill that emptiness you have with things like sexual immorality, pornography, gambling, drinking, money, or even good things such as family, security, job, and staying busy. Family is one of the most beautiful things given to us by the Lord in this life, but if you have a family without God? Meaningless“. Full Post HERE
My Reply
“Your heart feels like an empty pit of darkness and purposeless because you walk around this earth not even knowing why you have breath in your lungs. You spend your life trying to fill that emptiness you have with things like sexual immorality, pornography, gambling, drinking, money, or even good things such as family, security, job, and staying busy”
This is total nonsense. Plenty of atheists have very meaningful lives, including me. On a side note, when Christians first started coming to America they were astounded at the level of contentment possessed in the Christ-less, Native American. I can post some links if you like of many, many first hand accounts of the early settlers and their opinions of the NA.
The Native American surpassed the Christian in temperance, honesty, contentment, and were overall more refined than the Europeans (according to the europeans settlers and governors in their own journals) and had a human presence that was far and above the Christian.
That didn’t stop the settlers from learning the language for the sole purpose of converting them though. You all believe you have something special, but you don’t.
I think you fail to see that most of the problems of the modern world are a direct result of your religion. Where is the Native American contentment now, after 500 years of Christianity?
—I doubt my comment will ever ooze through moderation.
I suppose some need to believe even after they stop believing. Imagine living so hopelessly glued to something else for your morsel of self worth.
TheCommonAtheist 
To answer that last question: Hell, no!
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That was a little light on assertiveness Z. Gimme an H! Gimme an E! The whole article was full of 2nd hand repeat. People should use there own observations instead of repeating this nonsense.
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Meaningless, meaningless! All is meaningless.
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Are your countrymen trying hard to prove that religion provides meaning, yet never arriving at such?
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No, mostly we are trying to put food on the table to have time for such discussions. Did you know you can’t philosophize on an empty stomach?
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It doesn’t appear to be true. Nobody here is ever hungry and it doesn’t seem to help.
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That’s what make it really strange
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I would guess that no matter how much you have it is not enough. Bigger house, faster car, better vacations, credit card debt and work work work. The priority is money, not philosophy.
My Panamanian neighbors are quite poor, but the happiest people anywhere. Somehow they have priorities.
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One would expect that once you have basic needs covered, there is some room for reflection. But this doesn’t seem to be the case with Americans. You have some of the craziest crackpots known to man.
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Just look at our president. He can’t even fucking tweet well, but money =Messiah. It’s all very superficial. No depth. I have very few people to reflect or interact with here. It’s all thick with Jesus, and they’re not happy people. I enjoy our talks here and look forward to them. And the book referrals are good, and at best one movie. Haha. Thanks Mak
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Jim, it is to prove you wrong that I do movie suggestions.
It is unlikely that my book referrals will not be great 🙂
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No! Not in the least! However, since my “belief” and unwavering conviction in the indisputable reality of Sasquatch/Bigfoot is JUST AS REAL and BELIEVABLE as any historical God, Savior, Prophet, etc, liberally preached and blindly followed…
It would be utterly miserable and intolerable if Sasquatch/Bigfoot was not real! Yikes, the horror of that thought! 😨
🤭
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I thought Bigfoot was real when I was a kid and watched “The Legend of Boggy Creek”. My bedroom was at the far end of the house in the woods. The backyard had a creek and massive cedars and maples. The movie looked like it was filmed in the forest behind my house. I slept like a baby—up every two hours crying. I think I was 7
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Hahaha! 😄 Jim, I completely understand what you’re talking about AND how scared you felt back then! I do. “Up every two hours.” 😄 Do you remember the bathroom scene? HOLY F*CKIN CRAP!!!
https://makeagif.com/i/9cY7P_
I’ve never been so freaked out in my entire life after that scene! For about a week and a half I would NOT sit on any toilet at night where the bathroom had windows! 😱
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Hahaha. Maybe we were just the right age at the time. It was the scariest movie I’d ever seen.
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I don’t know who said it first but a Native American said “When the white man came, he had the Bible and we had the land. Now we have the Bible and they have the land.”
And theists say they should be grateful for giving them Christianity.
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That was credited to two people, but the only name I recall was Demond Tutu. And he remained catholic. Weird
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I thought Tutu was Episcopalian.
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My memory is fading. Anglican and Bishop. Isn’t it all about the same? But don’t tell them that.
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You’re right, Jim. But Anglican is the Church of England whereas Episcopalian is primarily a USA title. Tutu is a South African Anglican. As far as the conflict of conscience, I have not clue.
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The religion of his colonizers? You know it amazes me how much Latin America retains its Catholicism and celebrates the Spanish language of their conquers. It is the only heritage they have left after the purge. They really did a number on them.
My wife attended a Babaylan conference in Toronto last fall and the theme was “decolonizing your mind” before the empire. There were shamans there that were catholic, and somehow just couldn’t let it go simply because they don’t have any other history now.
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“I thought Tutu was Episcopalian”
Damn near the same thing. Episcopalian is sort of “Catholic Lite”. The RCC is so short of priests that they were trying to recruit Episcopalian priests to “come over to the dark side” so to speak. Would even take the married ones. Apparently you can be a married Catholic priest as long as you aren’t, well, actually Catholic? The RCC is very, very strange sometimes.
Sometimes? Ha! Most of the time.
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Right. As far as I understand, married clergy in the RCC (Priests and Deacons) may remain married, but not marry again after holy orders.
Opposite case: Father Cutie (que-tay?), the TV show guy who got busted on the beach with his GF (now his wife), jumped to Episcopalian so he could marry her.
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Oh gosh, I remember that scandal. The RCC is really odd some times. (Sometimes? Ha!) When my mother was alive she was addicted to EWTN and I vividly recall some priest almost ranting about how there were no married priests and never would be, and in the very next segment they were interviewing a married Episcopalian priest who’d converted and was serving as a parish priest.
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Kenyatta, our first president
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One might argue exactly the opposite, that atheists have far more pleasant and meaningful lives than the TBs. Atheists don’t spend their lives in sheer terror that some minor transgression against the hundreds of rules set up by god will trip them up and they’ll spend eternity in hell being tortured. They don’t have to scrimp and save to give their money to a church that spends their money on luxury homes for priests, bishops, ministers, etc. They don’t have to live their lives in a world of “double-think” where they somehow have to reconcile the blatantly false teachings of some church with the real world. They don’t have to piss off their friends and neighbors constantly trying to convert them to the “true faith”. They don’t have to be terrified that some god will send them to hell because they dared to use their genitals in a way god didn’t approve.
The list goes on, and on, and on, and on.
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I thought it was interesting what the old journals say about the native Americans they met in 1505 and forward, vs the state of the Native Americans today, with Christianity. I used to work as a medic on the Yakima Res. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t even close to the men and women described by the settlers.
I also have a little bit of sympathy for what she holds so dear and precious, what holds all of life’s contentment for her, is utterly meaningless to me and many others. She can’t imagine I’d be happy because her belief says she’s privy to some secret knowledge, but isn’t really special at all when you look at the facts.
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I certainly agree with that. I probably know more about Native Americans and their culture than the average OWG (Old White Guy). One of my best friends is a Brothertown Indian. We’ve been friends for something like 15 years. My oldest son’s partner is Ojibway. A good family friend spent years working at a free clinic on one of the reservations in Arizona. The way they were treated, and are still treated sometimes, is enough to make anyone with any kind of moral values weep with shame. The different Native American cultures are rich, complex and utterly amazing.
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Grouchy, feeling sheer terror and obsessing over every fault , and rule is actually a form of OCD. It becomes conflated with Christian faith. It’s something called scrupulosity, and can be treated.
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Oh dear! I’m obviously doing this “life without God” thing completely wrong — because I do not find myself drowning in existential despair or vainly chasing after those hedonistic pleasures the author mentioned. Should I be concerned?
“Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”~ H.L. Mencken
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You may have to double your sin output and see if you can fix this damn thing,Ron. Go get em
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“Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
Ha! My father told me that when I was about 8 years old only about Baptists.
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Promising “meaning” or “purpose in life” is a relatively new thing in Christianity. The older version promised “avoiding eternal torment”, not something existential like personal fulfillment. People whipped themselves, cut themselves, tormented themselves, starved themselves, made great donations, and often killed heretics and unbelievers, just to assure this. Or they prayed, and begged, and abased themselves daily, just to get Jesus to have mercy on their wretched souls. Or the old Calvinist anxiety, agonizing over whether or not you(or other people) are of the elect or reprobate. What a blessing that kind of anxiety is!
A Christian can always doubt, and must doubt, that their faith is genuine and acceptable. Maybe they will be among those who get told “I never knew you”, no matter how much they devoted or how hard they believed. It used to be said among rival Christian denominations that even if you were martyred for Jesus, it would not matter if you did not belong to the right church and confess the right doctrine. Those martyrs of the fanatical Donatists, or the Protestant martyrs, and the Catholic martyrs made by Protestants, were all damned by their Christian rivals.
And even if you do make it to the Christian heaven, it consists of endless praise of their god Jesus, and watching the majority of everyone be tormented. Including a lot of infants, according to many prominent Christians. What a reward. I personally don’t see any meaning in all that, if anything it provides a good example of something meaningless. A prison where no one can do anything but praise, or else they get thrown into the pit along with the damned. All to the end of gratifying the need for the Christian god to have his “glory”, according to the theologians. According to them, we have about the same purpose as clay to a potter, or maybe ants to a mean kid with a magnifying glass.
Not that heaven 2.0 is certain, or secure. Things were perfect with heaven 1.0, and that was messed up. Earth and man were perfect too, and those messed up. The Christian narrative has a god that can’t manage any of his projects, and he takes it out on is hapless creations. Why do Christians think that some minor mistake in the future can’t derail Heaven 2.0 New Jerusalem Edition? If the god wanted to create something perfect that satisfied him, and he is all powerful, and all knowing, he would have done it from the start. Even his project “Israel” was a failure, and he threw the Jews to the wolves despite his many promises, according to the Christians. Went from promising to make it so they would all follow his rules, to sending “blindness” among them and calling them “children of the devil.” The Jews dispute all this of course, at least they have had the sense not to let Christians tell them how things are and hijack their narrative. If only others would do the same.
This type of argument from Christians is really an attempt to project their own worthless and low mentality onto a target, to inculcate their pathetic mindset onto someone else. It ought to be considered a kind of curse, and treated as something malicious. It is an assumption that would only matter to someone who is already indoctrinated into a Christian mindset. People got by just fine and lived their lives, and still do, without Christianity. I was never born with a need for Christianity, no one was. It has to be trained into a person from infancy. May as well claim that we all have a need for the Eightfold Path of Buddhism, or else all is pointless.
I do not see how worshiping gods and personal fulfilment necessarily connect. That might enhance life for some people, but a depressed and “purposelessness woe is me” type of person will not change no matter who they worship. Asking the gods to provide you “purpose” or “meaning” is kind of silly. I can’t recall an instance where someone asked for something like that, what is usually asked for is help with general issues(crops, wealth, hunting, security, war, law and custom, vows and oaths) or personal goals(love, disputes, family issues, law cases, good or bad luck, journeys). You don’t really find this notion in the Old Testament either, Yahweh gives victory in war, good crops, and wealth, not personal fulfilment. How can anyone else god or otherwise “give” you meaning or purpose? If you want some kind of meaning or purpose, find them yourself. They are subjective abstractions that can’t be provided for you.
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“ really an attempt to project their own worthless and low mentality onto a target”. I suppose she has a difficult life and now some hope that what she’s attached to is going to help. It must be perplexing to know their are happy people all over that believe none of her salvation tactics.
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Out of all those things you mentioned, Jim, one is auspiciously missing. Native Americans did not have alcohol before the coming of Europeans. Alcohol was a game changer. It ruined as many lives as religion did.
What gets me, though, is Americans cannot survive reality without alcohol. Everything in America is based on alcohol, including religion. (Of course, this is true of most of the world now, but it seems to manifest itself more in American culture more than any other except possibly Russia!)
Diborge!
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That’s a good catch rawgod. I have a 35 year old friend at work who came to me with some health concerns even though very athletic and active. I asked him a few questions and one was about drinking. He said he’s just a social drinker, but when I ask him about his week, he had cribbage night, the hockey game, snowboarding, dinner with friends, Super Bowl, and a night out with his best friend. That was six nights, 3 of heavy drinking. I asked him if I had just told him, without details that I drink 6 nights a week and get drunk 3, would he think I had a problem? He was stunned how it crept up on him.
The Christians I quoted ( as you know) intensionally liquored the Indians to cheat them. They did not, nor do they now now even, have a haplotype conducive to alcohol.
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As an ex adiction counsellor, even when people come in for counselling, only 1 in 100 admit they have a problem, but they all know they could quit anytime if they wanted to. Seems they never want to! Without alcohol, or some other drugs, their “perfect” world falls apart.
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Well, it’s affecting his health and he also called in sick a couple times on mondays. He described what he was feeling, when I said he had a hangover it caught him by surprise. A little clueless, but maybe he’ll recognize he’s gone too far. He said he’s quitting a while to see if his health improves. Sure you’ve heard all that before.
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Too many times, and yet too few times. I heard the line, “I don’t have a problem!” every day. The worst thing was, I heard it from my fellow counsellors too.
Lies are not even a dime a dozen…
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They do seem to have had alcohol: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/a-brewery-in-peru-ran-for-centuries-then-burned-after-one-epic-ancient-party
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I never knew. That would have been a long walk though for rawgod’s people to find a pub.
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well, yes it would have been. Unfortunately, what rawgod seems to be trying is a variant on the noble savage myth.
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Peru is but a small part of two continents over a long period of time. Probably an aberation. But it is not important. What’s important is using drugs to run away from life, and as a nation Americans run very well.
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you were wrong and you can’t admit it. How unfortunate.
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You really think the Canadian Indians had access to Peruvian alcohol? I saw no intentions in his comment.
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I didn’t say that Jim. This is what Rawgod said “Out of all those things you mentioned, Jim, one is auspiciously missing. Native Americans did not have alcohol before the coming of Europeans. Alcohol was a game changer. It ruined as many lives as religion did.”
were the ancient tribes in Peru native americans?
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What’s to admit? Picking up a polished pebble on a beach full of rocks and stones does not a treasure make. I am not so anal that I will go claiming a victory for finding a molehill on a mountain. Enjoy.
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of course, you now end up with attempts at personal insults.
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They weren’t intended as insults, but observations. However, if you need to be insulted, it makes me wonder that you feel a need to be right. Meanwhile, I don’t give a shit if I’m wrong. It won’t be the last time.
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🙂
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With or without, my life remains the same. How I felt about it all improved dramatically when I finally openly embraced my own atheism. What I certainly do not need is some else telling me how I do (or would) feel, with or without a god of some sort or fashion. But, those words are not really intended for me.
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I started chatting with a woman in Ross the other day about shoes. Next thing you know, she’s catching me at my car and chatting about life and how we both still do date nights with our husbands. Not 2 minutes in, she’s pulling out her phone and opening the bible app to quote Ephesians. LMAO When she invited me to study with her JW friends, I struggled to be polite. “God is the center of our marriage” blah, blah, blah, and “without God our marriage would be meaningless.” Typically I will respond back with an intelligent comeback… or at least a shocking statement about being a devil worshiper, but I opted to not even get into it. Leave her alone in her delusional little world. There’s all the opium she could want right there on her phone!!!
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Imagine me telling my wife, “Honey, I love you, but you know without god you’re just meaningless to me”. Now, you want to get laid?
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LMAO Exactly!!!
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This attitude actually is pretty unfulfilling, I would think. I have an SDA neighbor that told me if an intruder came into the home and threatened his family, he would let the robber kill his family if he thought in some way it would bring him to Jesus. He also spanks his kids for god too, just so there’s no doubt they’ll love god more than him.
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Wow. I have no words….
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I didn’t either at the time. He’s an avid facebooker for Jesus and I show tremendous restraint on a regular basis. I am very outnumbered by fundamentalists here on the downlow.
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I imagine you are. I can’t follow people like that. I won’t engage with those who are like that because there is no seeing another way for them and I can’t argue with someone who won’t get out of their mindset to at least consider something else. Keeping my mouth shut drives me nuts and I find myself angry. Really angry. So I stay away. Just better for all involved. Mostly my husband. lol
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And what of she responded:
”Sure, but you know Jesus will be watching … oh, and of course you know I love him more.”
(At that point you are not allowed to say: ”Me too!”
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It must be an interesting life of a god, peeking into millions of bedrooms and backseats every minute of every day.
This could be a new “me too” movement you’ve stumbled on Ark. nice work
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Divine Voyeurism.
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I’m fine without “God”. It’s Christians that make me miserable with their constant bitching, whining, and moaning.
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Even if you didn’t believe and it actually would make your life better, then would you join? I think there is a fair amount of that going on because there is little other in the way of groups or community, and few choices for that.
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I was raised Catholic and still occasionally pop into to a church near me to sit and chill out, but in no way do I believe in magic invisible deities who were born of virgins and came back from the dead, nor do I believe in magical, invisible kingdoms we enter beyond death. Silliness. As for joining and preaching with a group of christians to make my life better? Nope. That would bring me immeasurable discomfort and shame because I’d truly NOT be practicing what I preached.
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I must be doing something wrong, I’m not miserable at all. Maybe I should take up church, I’m sure that would do the trick??
I’m always amused how some bible addled schmuck is always so damn certain us atheists are such miserable s.o.b.’s. Either that or we are meth addicts, and robbing, raping, and pillaging the countryside. Their false dilemmas always seem to ignore the obvious possibility that we are just normal people with no particular need for their imaginary friends…
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You’re just so miserable you don’t know how miserable you are, I suppose. With religion you can at least pretend it makes you happy.
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My life is rich, full and has ups and downs like every human, religious or not.
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With enough training Susi, you too can learn the art of deprecating without meaning. Shame on you for not being miserable.
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LOL Well, poo.
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Fun fact: Almost all the people I know questioning their purpose in life are Christians.
The ones who are pushing their way through with goals set and tasks at the ready are the agnostics and atheists. We’re not waiting on signs for God to show us a way. We’ve created our own.
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That’s a fun fact. I just got a comment on one of my older posts and the guy was talking about how he thinks for himself, thin listed off about ten different Christian talking points from morality to evolution. A lot of it word for word like I’d heard a hundred times. I think for myself by joining a church that serves all my spiritual needs up on a plate and tells me what we believe.
Waiting is a big part of that too. Waiting now for Jesus to return and fix the world. Waiting to cash in on all those missing prayers.
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Well, I guess if they’re all using the same book as a base, eventually they start sounding the same. Ironically, I don’t know many Christians who actually know the Bible. I ask them simple questions and they can’t answer it.
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“You trust in yourself and what you can do. Your heart feels like an empty pit of darkness and purposeless because you walk around this earth not even knowing why you have breath in your lungs. You spend your life trying to fill that emptiness you have with things like sexual immorality, pornography, gambling, drinking, money, or even good things such as family, security, job, and staying busy. Family is one of the most beautiful things given to us by the Lord in this life, but if you have a family without God? Meaningless“.
Where does one even begin. Notice how he/she covers their tracks by making sure they throw in “even the good things.” Typical. Don’t forget that Satan and his minions roam about the earth disguised as angels. So even those “good things” . . . all for naught. Meaningless. Don’t be fooled by the appearance of these good, moral and ethical atheists. They are scum and full of shit. Horrible horrible people. Of course this is often what Christians say about one another too when it comes to who is right and who had the correct Holy Spirit. Nothing new under their Son here.
Every single benevolent interaction born of love, compassion, kindness, service . . . meaningless toilet water.
It’s amazing to me as I continue on in my life interacting with others that I’m probably the only “Christ” they ever see, especially at their side as they die and they know nothing of my Christless Meaningless.
Yes. I do trust in myself to come alongside you even though my efforts are meaningless.
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It never occurred to me how arrogant in multiple ways her post was. The truth is what they have is not special. I remember about four years ago I stayed a brief time with a family here in the US, and they were very religious. But what struck me is it was nearly identical to my own prior faith. The one I was taught was set apart from the rest and special. It was uncanny, and even the colloquiums were the same. If I didn’t know their faith I’d have said it was mine. It wasn’t. Excellent content and observation Zoe. Thank you
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I have not read her post Jim. I cannot speak to any arrogance on her part. I can speak to my own. Typically as a Christian one would not describe me as arrogant. I would not have described myself that way either.
It was a few years after changing my mind about what I once believed was the truth that I realized just how arrogant I was. 😦 It was not an easy pill to swallow.
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I would want you in my corner, Zoe. Your compassion to come along side the dying deserves nothing but praise and support.
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He is probably projecting his own experience onto others. I have a sense that there is something deeply wrong going on with this writer, guys. He deserves our compassion.
Recently I’ve begun reading Victor Frankl’s book, “A Man’s Search For Meaning.” It details his experience in a Nazi concentration camp, and how important it was for those people in the camp even in the middle of that horrendous experience to find meaning in their lives, or they would in the end, just give up and die.
I really do think that it is certainly true that people who are non theists can create meaning and find great purpose in their lives. I personally don’t feel that I would be miserable and useless if I were an atheist.
For me as a Christian believer, though, what I find is that knowing God’s love in Christ acts like a kind of amplifier to deepen and enhance the meaning and purpose that I’ve found in life.
Knowing that the universe arcs toward justice, I think helps me to feel like none of my efforts to make a positive difference in the world will in the long term be in vain, even if I can’t always see the significant results.
I think there is also a deeper comfort and hope even in the face of death that I would not experience as a non-believer.
However, on the other hand, if I were coming out of some abusive or toxic religious cult, then I would certainly feel that I was better off without God at all. That’s understandable to me.
Or, I also think that there are unfortunately certain types of mental illnesses that can become conflated with religious faith, and it’s dangerous if because of spiritual convictions, people are simply pushing these things down, and not dealing with them.
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Just wonder if you had a chance to read her whole post?
There are other forms of meaning that aren’t laden with contradiction and excuse, but for the sake of this conversation, there is a lot of meaning in realizing there is no meaning. Mostly life is a matter of luck or bad luck, from the neurons you’re born with to where and to whom. Realizing this crap shoot also diminishes the need for vengeance, allows us to be compassionate to each other because we realize it could’ve been us. All of this meaning supposedly provided by the church is ultimately backed by the threat of hell, which fear, if believed is always a crippling feature.
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Of course it is a crippling factor. How can love ever be based in fear of torment, Jim?
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This is not a unique perspective in Christianity. Probably closer to sound doctrine than the watered down versions people are willing to tolerate. I have heard this Moore time than I can count. Really it reminds me of a codependent abusive relationship where ones self worth depends on the approval of another.
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How can anyone considered themselves to be “loved” when their only value to the god is like a potter and his clay? That example is in the New Testament. I have read the Bible many times by now. I can’t say that Yahweh seems like he values human life at all, and certainly he does not love most people. At every instance where he could demonstrate or teach mercy or compassion, he doesn’t, instead he does the opposite. Yahweh even makes things go a certain way on multiple occasions just so he has a pretext to make more people suffer. The ancient Israelites didn’t value compassion or empathy anyway, the main value in the Old Testament is ruthless obedience.
The wrathful, vengeful gods of peoples in the Middle East are the closest to Yahweh. The demand for fear is common throughout their writings, “you will fear your god” was a standard admonition. Just reading any of the material from Assyria, Babylon, Elam, Akkad, Sumer, Ugarit, Hattusa, and etc. will quickly show that. Plague, bloodshed, and wrath, everyone is doomed, the god is angry, and so on. Some of the language and metaphors are very much like those in the Old Testament, like the arrows of the god that drink blood, or the devouring sword of the god, or the fiery wrath of the god’s coming.
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Some of the language and metaphors are very much like those in the Old Testament
Well, of course! That’s where they got their material — NOT the other way around.
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The funny thing is, when a god is getting really angry in these texts, another god usually comes and tells them to cool down. Though sometimes the gods still act on their wrath. And some gods were considered ill-tempered by nature, like Erra, or Nergal, or Teshub. Others were considered more kind and forgiving. Originally, it seems that many approached Yahweh by praying to his goddess consort called Asherah. Get on his consort’s good side, and Yahweh became more approachable. There was a counterbalance to the angry, violent storm god Yahweh. But with Yahwistic monolatry, and later Jewish monotheism, there was no counterbalance. It was all wrath and vengeance all the time after that. I have not seen any religious text as full of vengeful malevolence as the Bible. Nor have I ever seen such praise for treachery and dissimulation as in the Bible. Rahab the harlot was celebrated for doing what made Tarpeia of Rome an infamous traitor.
In Christianity, Mary kind of took over that role. It was said that Jesus could not refuse a request from his mother, and she was considered an advocate for mercy and restraint, rather than wrath.
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Capricious May be the word we’re looking for.
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Slightly off-topic, Becky, but could you be a little less gender-specific in your comments? We are not all “guys.” Perhaps you could use “folks” instead? 🙂
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Ok, Nan, you are right. I’m hearin ya. 🙂
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Yes, sleeping in on Sundays. Living life like a normal person, not listening to stories in a book that’s sexiest, and believes in slavery and genocide. Oh how terrible my life has become.
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Your so miserable you just don’t see how miserable you are. You could easily cut your self esteem in half by believing. That way at least you’ll know that you’re nothing, then the church can rebuild you to join the 3500 year wait.
Believe, or go burn in hell, but I love you
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The Tribe of Benjamin story and how they got their wives? Was the last damn straw for me really of that book of bullshit. How the hell do you justify a tribe of Jews going into a town because they had no virgins to marry, and then? Slaughtering the whole town save the virgins, which? They then raped and according to Levitical law? Well they sure did not have to pay the fathers the 50 shekels for raping their virgin daughters, but the girls were forced to marry their rapists. And then when they still did not get enough from Jabesh? What did they do? Kidnapped the virgin dancing girls of Shiloh, raped them and forced them into marrying them. Now how the hell do you call this moral in any damn way, shape or form? And the god who approved of this? This proved to be beyond any shadow of a doubt that if there is a being such as Satan? Then the biblical god is that Satan.
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What I feel is that there is a mix of good and bad in every culture. But human sacrifice as well as wanton violence and murder is wrong whether we read about this in the Bible, read about it as practiced by the Pawnee, or experience it today in contemporary societies.
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There is one instance of the Pawnees doing this. Most of us Native Americans Nations? Found this practice abhorant. Many Nations had a rule, you murder an innocent child or harm them in any way? You were actually? Put to death in one horrifying way of being kicked out of the tribe and marked. NO ONE was even to feed you should you bear such a mark.
About the most brutal of the Native Nations were in fact? The Aztec and Mayans. Their ritual sacrificing of humans was very evil and wrong and is in fact? Condemned by many Nations of Natives.
But the shit said about us Natives is bullshit. Most of the stories about our supposed savagries were portrayed by White Christians. Like when the great Sioux wiped out Custer at Little Bighorn. It was not the fact that Custer and the US army was coming to murder the Sioux that was deemed wrong, but that the Sioux not only fought back, but killed Custer and his men in one hell of a battle. So that then produced the Sand Creek Massacre in revenge. Where Col Chivington, a Methodist Minister who hated Natives, and his psycho men slaughtered the innocent, peaceful camp of Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Natives. The Chief? Was cut in half waving the American flag and the white flag of peace. After Chivington and his psycho Christian men slaughtered them? Mostly old men and old women, women and children? They started their mutilations. They cut off the breasts of the women and used them for tobacco pouches. They cut off the ball sacs of the men and boys and used those also for tobacco pouches. They skinned the skin off the backs of the children, cut them into strips and used them for leather. Oh and they also cut out the vaginas of the women and wore them as hats. And? Chivington and his men were first praised for this. They even named a town after Chivington. But when the news broke of what actually happened? Well about half the Americans said the Arapaho and Cheyenne deserved it and the other half? Went after Chivington.
But again and again and again? Most of the stories of us Natives being the savages? Were nothing more than bullshit stories about us? Were invented and passed around as truth by Christians.
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Let me educate you on the truth of Native Americans and a lot of the ways we used to deal with wars and battles.
1. Most wars and battles? Only were between warriors. No women or child was to be hurt in a battle or war. Did this always happen? No. But when it did? You had to go through very specific rituals to cleanse yourself of this. Many nations also forced you to adopt any child who may have been left orphaned because you killed their mother. They also had to pay the family of the dead woman or child a blood gift. If that blood gift was accepted? Then the warrior was forgiven. If not? Then they had to go through more cleansing rituals as perscribed by the family and the medicine man. It was considered a great dishonor to even accidentally kill a woman or child on a battlefield or in a war. And those who purposefully did this? For the most part? Were literally kicked out of the tribe and marked. No one could help them if they had such a mark and if you did? You too were kicked out of the tribe and marked.
2. The fiercest warriors we had in the United States? Were the Plains Nations. Once they got hold of the horses? NO ONE could beat them in a righteous battle. Even the military said this about them, they never saw anyone who could ride horses in battle like the Native Plains Indians. Yet? There is much talk about how these Plains Nations brutally slaughtered each other and nothing could be further than the truth. See many of the Plains Nations did not believe in killing an enemy in a battle. Many of these battles fought were called Coup Battles. This is where you had a coup stick or used your bow or other stick, to hit your enemy with. Normally, you did not kill your enemy in coup battles. You beat the heck out of them, and by doing so? You insulted them in ways that killing them in battle never would. This is not to say that some of the Plains Nations did not do brutal death battles, but they were fewer and far between when this happened than claimed by Whites about them.
3. Did these things change once Natives came under attack by the Christians invading their lands and slaughtering them? Yes, in many ways it did. But not on the scale that is claimed. Once Christian Whites showed they did not care about who they killed in battles, or in their forced death marches to their death camps, that they killed old people, women and children, often in the most brutal of ways and then desecrated their bodies? Natives? Said enough of this shit and engaged rules of war on the same par as the Christians were doing against us. Yes, some Nations said screw it, we will kill men, women and children invading our lands. But most? Still refused to kill women and children. They still thought it was beneath a warrior code to do so. Most of these Nations did not kill the women and children but kidnapped them and actually? After a while? Made them members of the tribe. And what is funny? When some of these whites were discovered living among the Nations? They stated? They did not want to go back to whites but stay with their Native nation because they were actually treated well. Again, this did not happen all the time, but the majority of the time? This is how it was done.
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Jim
It seems odd that you are highly selective and go back to cultures that we really don’t know too much about to make your claim that they were so much better than Christians. There were Romans Hordes of barbarians, and vikings throughout Europe and all sort of nomadic people. Genghis Kahn got along great without Christianity didn’t he?
“Mound 72 at the Mississippian culture site of Cahokia, directly across the Mississippi River from modern St. Louis, Missouri, contained the remains of “scores of clearly sacrificed female retainers” as well as four headless and handless male skeletons. The roughly contemporaneous site of Dickson Mounds, some 100 miles (150 km) to the north, also contained a mass grave with four headless male skeletons.[19] The presence of the four bodies, whose heads were replaced with pots at burial, is not conclusive of ritualized sacrifice.
The Pawnee practiced an annual Morning Star ceremony, which included the sacrifice of a young girl. Though the ritual continued, the sacrifice was discontinued in the 19th century.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice_in_pre-Columbian_cultures
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Maybe so, Joe. The idea of my thread is there were better ways than Christianity as well, but that didn’t stop Christians from decimating those societies as well. I’ve Ben reading the accounts of the early settlers. Most of them tell a different tale than you.
https://jimoeba.wordpress.com/2020/01/14/the-native-american-before-christian-spoil/
As early as 1504 the settlers told a variety of different tales praising the natives beyond the fellow Christians. Let me know what you think
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Jim
We should seperate out when people say Indians were more Christian than people claiming to be Christian (see the sheep and the goats) and people saying their religion/moral code was better than Christianity. A very strong tradition in Christianity is recognizing the good in those of different beliefs – See the parable of the good Samaritan. If the settlers thought their way of life was better than Christianity they would give up Christianity. But since they didn’t they were instead recognizing their society made the Native Americans, in many ways, better Christians.
Also Christianity did not come about in a vacuum. Many of the beliefs and cultures of pre-christian days lingered. Just like Christian beliefs remain in people who no longer identify with the religion. Romans were quite cruel and warlike as were european vikings and pagans.
It may be that the Indians lived a good life. But yes we do value things of civilized life such as education and property laws and they may have had some downsides.
But overall I think the problem i have is you are cherry picking. If you just look at large at all the different non-christian cultures I think Christian cultures do well.
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I haven’t cherry picked anything Joe. I do have a habit of going to the source documents and avoiding the commentary and revisions that tend to smooth things over. People like Bartolo de las Casas in the caribe, and in the this case I’ve been reading journal accounts in the “Friends Intelligencer” published in 1872, containing first hand accounts from Christians as far back as 1500’s. Really you should thank me. It’s painstaking work in 85 volumes of difficult text.
”If the settlers thought their way of life was better than Christianity they would give up Christianity”. That’s actually the bullshit of monotheistic belief. Word for word you are wrong here. They recognized the superiority of the native and in the next sentence admitted to learning the language for the soul purpose of converting them. Monotheisms appeal to faith is basically a disease process that has crippled mankind two millennia. Here’s a direct quote.
“The fact is that the Indian shames the Christian in the sincerity of his religious belief and the correctness of his moral conduct”.
Describing the frugal meal that satisfies them, “pumpkin without butter or spice, the bare ground for a table, shells for spoons and leaves of the forest for plates”, he winds up exclaiming, “these wild men who never in their life heard Christs teaching of temperance and contentment, herein far surpass the Christian”
Ten years later he goes on again with his praises; “They live far more contented and unconcerned for the morrow than we Christians. They do not over-reach in trade. They know nothing of our everlasting pomp and stylishness. They neither curse nor swear, are temperate in food and drink, and if any of them get drunk, the fault of the Christians for the sake of accursed lucre”.
They intentionally liquored the Indians to cheat them. Even as absolute surety demonstrated the Indian surpassed them in every way as human beings, they still sought them to Christ as the only way of true living. It most certainly is not, but may soon become such through attrition—our course is set.
He said; “meanwhile, we use the wild man for day labor and gradually acquire their language and make them acquainted with the teachings of Christ”—1687—William Penn
I know you want to believe differently, but it would appear your faith has ruined your discernment.
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Jim
I think you are cherry picking by the nonchristian culture you chose.
And the people you quote are saying it is surprising how the Indians never heard of christ yet act more Christian than Christians. He is indicting his fellow Christians for not walking the Christian walk as well as the Indians.
I don’t disbelieve anything you quoted. I think many native Americans lived excellent lives. But you ignore most of my comments concerning Europe before Christianity. Do you think the Indians would be treated so much better if hordes of prechristian pagan romans or Vikings arrived instead?
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It was an entirely Christians culture and William Penn himself a devout and pious Quaker. You don’t believe me? Why would I lie. It’s free on google books if your not afraid to look. Google Books
Friends Intelligencer
Vol 29, pp 68-69
Andover-Harvard Theological Library
Here’s a portion
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I don’t doubt William Penn was Chistian or that America was founded on a Christian Culture. That is CS who is making that argument. I am saying that it is part of Christian tradition to recognize the good in people outside your tribe – See e.g., the parable of the good samaratin.
These Christians are admitting the Native Americans are doing a better job at living a christian way of life than they are and the Indians should be commended for it and their Fellow Christians should do better. What they are not doing is saying the Christian ideals should be abandoned just because the native Americans are living up to them better.
If you want to pull your kids out of school and have them live off the land in some remote area that is your decision. It is/should be a free country. I think such a family would almost certainly be morally more pure/innocent. IMO knowledge brings knowledge of corruption and a loss of innocence. I think you will find this in various tribal societies with no written language.
But once people learn how just about every civilized society operates you are no longer going to have that same purity.
There is no doubt Christians have done their share of damage in the world.
Consider Bishop Diego de Landa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_de_Landa
In the sort of arrogant ignorance we can all rally against he not only tortured people but destroyed almost all Mayan texts! So I am not claiming Christianity has a spotless record, but on the whole it has been a force for good.
Jesus and the scripture writers generally broke down societal barriers against women and other races religions. The basic notion that all people are made in the image of God supports the relatively rare view that all people are equal in value.
The west’s best influences were Athens and Jerusalem. Athens was great for reason and logic, but not so great on morality. Aristotle was often sited in support of slavery.
You need to understand what cultures Christianity inherited (for example one where people were “entertained” by seeing other people eaten by wild animals and slavery was always practiced) to understand what effect it has.
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Really, it illustrates just how insignificant and non-special your religion is. You’ve nothing left to compare it to, so it’s super great, but many people around the world do wonderfully without it. Perplexing, but true. Christianity isn’t special.
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Jim I many cultures to compare christian culture to. Pre-christian roman, Pre-christian pagan, soviet, Chinese, Mongol societies Muslim societies even pre-columbian societies killing people on their temples etc etc. You are the one ignoring all the societies around the world throughout history and instead searching the stacks to find a few Indians and saying “look at these guys! these guys here!!”
I think it does illustrate how desperate you are to try to bash Christianity.
I don’t think so many societies
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If the European pagans and Vikings had discovered the Native Americans before Christians the outcome may not have been any different at all, illustrating once again how insignificant Christianity is from the rest of the world
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Ah yes the vikings would have been writing about what nice manners the Native Americans have. This just shows how myopic you have become in your quest to condemn Christianity.
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You are completely Missing the point. It isn’t what was written about the natives, it’s the fact that, as you’ve so eloquently mentioned, the treatment the natives received is as bad as any cultures possible could have been. Meaning your religion is not special in any way. It didn’t engender any restraint or high moral. It was no different than any thug nation doing its thing, yet they claim high moral superiority. It’s a crock.
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I think the treatment of the natives varied from place to place. It wasn’t as bad as it possibly could have been. The treatment of Indians when contrasted to Christian ideals lead to the creation of a notion of human rights shared by all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_Latin_America#Spanish_colonization_of_the_Americas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublimis_Deus
Of course, there were atrocities but for the first time there was also a current against the atrocities that said this is not morally acceptable.
If there is not real morality there is no way to reasonably argue against whatever the majority thinks. This view continued on in the struggle for freedom for all people and is clearly stated by MLK’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Interestingly, enough MLK is also calling out church leaders to live by christian ideals. But again MLK’s solution was not to say well we don’t live by Christian ideals so lets abandon them. No he said lets start living by them. MLK says an unjust law is one that is immoral. Here is what he says:
“You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority.”
The problem you and many other atheists who reject that there is any real moral code have is you can’t do this. You deny there is a real moral code that the law can violate. Therefore you (like so many ancients) will continue to do whatever is agreed to. Christianity is doesn’t work that way.
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Really? Millions of us Native Americans were butchered by you Christians. You all called us the savages, as you savaged us. You forced many of our Nations on Bataan like death marches, where thousands died on these marches, to what you all called reservations, but we called Death Camps, where? Your fellow Christians started slaughtering all our game for us to live on and then? Starved us to slow deaths. Or if we went off those death camps? You all hunted us down, murdered us, or dragged us back.
YOU kidnapped our children, put them through your disgusting Industrial Schools. In the First Nation Industrial Schools ran by the Roman Catholic Church in Canada? Over 30,000 children lost their lives. They were raped, tortured, beaten and brutalized by Roman Catholic priests, brothers, nuns, sisters and laymen. You Christians did all you could to remove any trace of their Native heritage. You cut the hair of the boys, which was a massive insult, you forced them to turn over anything that would remind them of their home and their ways of life. Again, if they ran away from these Christian houses of horror? They were brought back and beaten.
This was your Christian moral code. To wipe us Natives off the face of the earth. Christians? Committed the worst act of mass genocide in human recorded history against us Native Americans.
SO DAMN MUCH FOR YOUR CHRISTIAN MORAL CODE HUH? JUSTIFYING THE WORST CASE OF MASS GENOCIDE AGAINST NATIVE AMERICANS HUH?
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The problem with you and most Christians are? You proclaim you have a moral code, but you throw that moral code out the window all the time. Thou shall not murder? Christians murdered millions upon millions in their forced conversion programs against the Pagans and Native Americans.
Your Christian Crusades to Jerusalem? Were not the only ones. You Christians did 9 Crusades into Northern Paganlands, slaughtering Pagans as you went. And your Christian Crusades to Jerusalem? You Christians slaughtered more Jews and even fellow Christians than you all did Muslims. Matter of fact? Christians had to call off the Third and Fourth Crusades cause you Christians were murdering each other in such numbers? You did not have enough left to go to war.
Then? Let’s take for example the Christian Wars. How about that Thirty Year War for example, the war between Catholic and Protestant Christians? By the time that war was over? 75% of the Germainc region where this war was fought? Was wiped out. It took three generations to come back from that one.
During the Black Death period? Christians first blamed Jews for it and slaughtered whole towns of Jews. Then? They blamed the old scapegoats Satan, Witches and Cats, issuing an edict to commit literal genocide against cats, and of course? Torture and murder more of those they called witches. But in the end? It was a freaking flea on the backs of rats that caused the Black Death. But did Christians apologize for this mass slaughter? Hell no.
Christians today? Tens of thousands of them are in prison, for committing brutal murders against atheists and lgbts and others, all based on their Christian beliefs, and this does not even come close to counting how many Christian priests and pastors and Christian school teachers sitting in prison for raping children.
You Christians have all kinds of moral codes you demand we all follow, while in your hypocrisy? You Christians are huge failures in following your own moral codes you demand all others follow.
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“The problem with you and most Christians are? You proclaim you have a moral code, but you throw that moral code out the window all the time.”
I don’t agree it happens all the time but I certainly agree with the jist of your comment that I quoted above!
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So the Pawnee sacrificed ONE Maiden in all these rituals and you condemn them all? Ok, so what about the human sacrifices in the Old Testament? Like Jephthah who sacrificed his daughter in Judges 11:29-40? Or Josiah sacrificing humans to god in 1 Kings 13:1-2 and 2 Kings 23:20-25? And what about the instances of Jews just up and slaughtering whole groups of people on their command of “god”, or their ripping out the fetuses of pregnant women and smashing the bodies of infants and children against rocks on gods command to murder them in the bible? I guess when Jews or Christians commit sacrifices, or slaughters of innocent fetuses, infants and children in the name of god? Why that is ok.
But let’s take the Pawnee Ritual shall we? Only one group of Pawnee practiced this ritual and actually? Not for very long. But it had the same religious and spiritual connotations as did the Jews sacrificing their child victims. Matter of fact? Out of all the research on this? Only one girl was ever sacrificed in this ritual by the Pawnee tribe.
Native American Skies – Pawnee Morningstar Ritual, Part 1
http://nativeamericanantiquity.blogspot.com/2012/11/native-american-skies-pawnee.html
t was the spring of 1838 when a 14-year-old Oglala Sioux girl named Haxti lead a procession of Skidi Pawnee toward the approaching sunrise. She was painted and dressed for a sacred Pawnee “Morning Star” ritual. She most likely had no idea what was about to happen but did not resist since she had been living with the Pawnee since the previous autumn and had been fed and treated very well. The procession that followed her was made up of all the men, boys and male infants from the village.
She was directed to stand before a wooden scaffold by the Pawnee High Priest. The scaffold was constructed of sacred woods and leathers from different animals each representing one of the directions – elm for north, cottonwood for south, etc. It was built outside the village and erected over a pit with elements relating to the four cardinal directions and lined with downy feathers and represented the Evening Star’s garden of germination in the west. While they waited, the priests and procession sang four songs. They sang of the girl, about Heaven, and about the powers of the beasts of the four parts of earth.
When the star was due to rise, the girl was directed to stand on the fourth post and then was tied to the top post on the scaffold. At the moment the star appeared above the horizon, two priests rushed up and branded her under her arm pits and near her groin as the man who had captured her and dedicated her to the Morning Star fired an arrow into her heart. The High Priest then cut her above her heart with a flint knife and smeared his face with her blood. Some of her blood was allowed to drip onto the dried heart and tongue of a buffalo and more to flow into the feathery pit below. When the High Priest stepped away, all those in the procession fired their arrows into her chest to hasten her death. Haxti’s body was removed from the scaffold and placed face down so that her blood would soak the earth. Her death insured the renewal of earth and her soul became that of the Morning Star.
Native American Skies: Pawnee Morning Star Ritual, Part 2
https://nativeamericanantiquity.blogspot.com/2012/12/native-american-skies-pawnee-morning.html
“The practice of sacrifice to Morning Star was part of the rites of the Skidi band of the Pawnee, a group that had developed a unique relationship to the stars. Of all the Native American groups, no one had developed such an intricate and direct affinity to the stars. For them, the stars were kindred souls; they took much of the direction of their life from the sky.”
James R. Murie, whose mother was Skidi Pawnee, wrote, “Over all is Tirawa (or Tirawahat), the One Above, changeless and supreme. From Tirawa comes all things: Tirawa made the heavens and the stars.
“In the west dwelt the White Star Woman, the Evening Star, who must be sought and overcome that creation might be achieved. From the east went forth the Great Star, the Morning Star, to find and overcome the Evening Star, that creation might be achieved. The Morning star called to his younger brother: “Take the Sacred Bundle, bear it over thy shoulder and follow.” And the Morning Star journeyed to the west. As ever as he journeyed, the Evening Star moved, came and drew him towards her. (For men may see how the Evening Star moves nightly. One night she is low in the heavens, another night she is high in the heavens. Even so she moved and drew the Morning Star.) Yet when the Evening Star beheld the Morning Star draw near, she placed in his path Hard Things to hinder his approach. Thus, even as the Morning Star first saw the Evening Star, she rose and looked on him and beckoned him. He started towards her, but the earth opened and waters swept down, and in waters was a serpent with mouth wide opened to devour.”
Morning Star [Mars] defeated the serpent by throwing a fireball into its mouth. But then Evening Star [Venus] put up nine more “hardships” to discourage him which he also defeated. When he finally reached her lodge, he had to defeat four beasts guarding the four directions. Again from Murie, “And the Morning Star spoke [to the stars] and said, “I have conquered, and ye shall obey my command. Thou, black Star, shalt stand in the northeast, whence cometh night. Thou art Autumn. Thou, Yellow Star, shalt stand in the northwest, where is the golden setting of the sun. Thou art Spring. Thou, White Star, shalt stand in the south, facing north, whence cometh the snow. Thou art Winter. Thou, Red Star, shalt stand in the southeast. Thou art Summer.”
But Evening Star was not ready to relent to Morning Star and placed more “hardships” before him. He even had to create the rain and the sun to provide water, light, and heat for her garden. When, at last, Evening Star submitted to Morning Star, their maiden child descended to earth and married a boy and their children peopled the earth.
Astronomer Von Del Chamberlain suggests that the details of the capture and preparation of a maiden for sacrifice is all part of the symbolic re-enactment of the original conquering acts of Morning Star, as seen in the heavens. The ritual ceremony was critical to ensure the fertility of the earth for planting and the abundance of buffalo for hunting.
Native American Skies — Pawnee Morning Star Ritual, Part 3 Skidi Pawnee adapted the story of the heavens into their lives.
https://nativeamericanantiquity.blogspot.com/2012/12/native-american-skies-pawnee-morning_13.html
Quoting from “Living the Sky” by Ray A. Williamson, “According to their own stories, the Pawnee received much of their ritual direction from the stars. They claimed that at one time they organized their villages according to stellar patterns. Each village, they said, possessed a sacred bundle given to it by one of the stars. When the different villages assembled for a great ceremony, their spatial arrangement on earth reflected the celestial positions of the stars whose bundles they possessed. Then there were eighteen separate Skidi Pawnee villages, each associated with a different star.
“ … four of the villages belonged to the four semicardinal stars that Morning star overcame in his quest for Evening Star. These villages were termed the leading villages because each took its turn in leading the annual ceremonial cycle,beginning when the various sacred bundles were opened in the spring after the Evening Star Ritual. … they served as the pillars of Heaven that held the sky away from the earth.
“In the traditional Pawnee earth lodge, the four posts that held up the roof represented the four stars that held up the sky. … The northwest star … was associated with spring, the mountain lion, yellow corn, and a female star, Yellow Star. Yellow Star was married to Red Star, who ruled over the southeast in the summer … associated with red corn and the wolf. Big Black Star, which stood in the northeast, was the autumn star. He was associated with black corn and with the bear. He was married to the southwest, or white, star. She, in turn, ruled over winter and was associated with white corn and the wildcat.”
Astronomer Chamberlain used the star colors and their prominence and timing in the sky to surmise that the Yellowish star is Capella, Antares the Red Star, Sirius the White Star, and Vega the Black Star. Of course, no star is black, so its relationship and pairing with the other stars led him to suggest it is the black star. They believed that the Black Star bestowed knowledge on them and in the Black Star’s bundle they carried a buckskin with a detailed chart of the stars painted on it. In Part 4, I will reveal what the chart contained.
As you can see, the Pawnee tried to model their lives after the night sky, interpreting what they witnessed above and applying it below. Curiously, unlike most other cultures, the Sun and Moon played only minor roles.
Native American Skies: Pawnee Morning Star Ritual, Part 4
https://nativeamericanantiquity.blogspot.com/2012/12/native-american-skies-pawnee-morning_27.html
There is no “visible” Big Black Star in the night sky so why did the Pawnee name it “Black” Star? There are numerous references where the Pawnee called the star “The Big Black Meteoric Star” or referenced a Sacred Bundle as “The Big Black Star Meteoric Bundle”. Astronomer, Von Del Chamberlain, speculated that a meteorite may have fallen from the part of the sky near Vega (thought to be the Big Black Star). Since meteorites are black soon after they hit the earth, the Pawnee may have taken it to be a message from the star. Sacred Owlwolf posted a story on “nativeartsculture” which he credits his “great aunt Sini Rain Drops Caller” for telling him. It is the story of “Osage Sky-Seeing” who saw a falling star one night and found it the next morning. The meteorite spoke to him in his dreams and told him that it had come from “a star that stands in the heavens a little to the east, but south.” Although, the meteorite that belonged to Osage Sky-Seeing is not the same one associated with Big Black Star, it illustrates how the Pawnee might have associated a meteorite as a messenger from a star and named it accordingly.
As discussed in Part 3, each Pawnee village had a “Sacred Bundle” that contained those things used for their ceremonies and rituals. The Sacred Bundle for the Big Black Star contained a buckskin map with painted stars on it and represented a detailed map of the sky. It is not an accurate reproduction of the night sky according the Ray A. Williamson (Living the Sky) but, rather, “it was likely to be more important to the Pawnee to paint the crucial constellations as they understood them from their corpus of myths. In use, I suspect that the chart served to remind the owner of the bundle and his intimates of the stellar patterns and their stories.”
So, what is on the Pawnee Star Chart? Again, from Williamson, “The North Star, whose name in Pawnee is literally, “the Star That Does Not Walk Around,” they compared to the god Tirawahat. North Star was chief over all the other stars and saw to it that they did not lose their way. … Rotating around the north star and nearest to it were the groups of stars that represented stretchers. According to the myth, in the first council, when decisions were being made about where the various gods would stand in the sky, two people became ill. The stars placed them on stretchers in order to carry them along. They still journey in the sky, traveling continually about the Star That Does Not Walk Around, and serving as a pattern for humans. The stretchers are the bowls of the Big and Little Dippers. The stars that follow (that is, the respective handles) are the Medicine Man, his wife, and Errand Man.
“The chart is divided roughly in half by a series of small painted dots and tiny crosses that represent the Milky Way. … the Pawnee … considered it the road to the world of the dead. … Near the center of the chart and below the Milky Way is a large circle of eleven stars called the Council of the Chiefs, who were in the sky to watch over the people.
“… Opposite the Council of chiefs on the other side of the Milky Way is the Pleiades, a compact group of six stars. The priests used the appearance of the Pleiades, as seen through the lodge smoke hole just after sunset in early spring, to establish the time for planting ceremonies.
“…The arrival of spring … was watched for in the skies by the heliacal appearance of the two stars called the Swimming Ducks. These were identified by the astronomer Ray Moulton as the stars Lambda and Upsilon Scorpio, which form the stinger of the Western constellation Scorpius.”
James R Murie, whose mother was Pawnee, explained, “The time for the ceremonies of the Evening Star bundle was primarily determined by the recurrence of the thunder in the spring; but it should be understood that it was not at the very first sound of the thunder that the ceremony was held, for it might have thundered at any time. The approximate time was fixed by the appearance of two small twinkling stars (the Swimming Ducks) in the northeastern [sic: this should read southeastern] horizon near the Milky Way. When low, deep, rumbling thunder was heard, starting in the west and rolling around the entire circuit of the heavens, then it was time for the Thunder Ritual to be recited.”
The Swimming Ducks were on the star chart near the Milky Way. To the right was what the Pawnee called the snake, which was the body of the Western constellation Scorpius. The rolling thunder was symbolic of Tirawahat’s messenger Paruxti telling the Pawnee that life was renewed and the ceremony signified the beginning of the year for the Pawnee and a tribute to the gods.
This is not all of the stars depicted on the buckskin Star Chart. Many of the others have not been identified. But, there is no question that they also served as sacred reminders of the special relationship the Pawnee had with star gods of the night sky.
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Child sacrifice and killing people in arenas for entertainment was something Christianity tended to frown on throughout its history. Not so with other cultures. I am not saying Christians were perfect far from it.
But I am saying that Christianity in the west came about in a culture of roman and barbarian paganism. Christianity should not be blamed for the fact that roman culture completely accepted slavery and killing people for entertainment. Of course, these cultural forces do not change overnight. We see Christianity butting against these practices with people like Bishop Gregory of Nyssa and Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas as well as the Quaker Benjamin Lay
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/quaker-comet-greatest-abolitionist-never-heard-180964401/
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Oh really Joey? Another lame excuse from a cocksucker for christ lmfao.
In 356 AD? Christians made it a death penalty punishment to be a Pagan. It was not the Romans making it a death penalty punishment for Christians, it was the Christians making it a death penalty punishment to be a Pagan.
Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed, because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues.
In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights by Christians.
The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415.
Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded.
Christians slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Pagans in the following Christian Crusades into Northern Paganlands
Wendish Crusades 1147-16th Century
Swedish Crusades 1150 to 1293
Danish Crusades 1191 and in 1202
Livonian Crusades 1198–1212
Estonia Crusades 1208–1224
Latvia Crusades 1180-1886
Lithuania Crusades 1202-1230
Latgallians and Selonians Crusades 1208–1224
Saaremaa Crusades 1206–61
Curonians and Semigallians Crusades 1201–90
Prussian Crusades 1219 and 1222
Then how about the Christian Crusades against the Cathars? 1209–1229 In 1209, Pope Innocent III (also here) called for a crusade to exterminate the Cathar people of France (the Albigensians), simply because they had different superstitious beliefs to his own stupid beliefs. Men, women and children were butchered by the Pope’s forces.
Or how about they took Jerusalem, known as the Seige of Jerusalem, in 1099? The Christian army butchered almost every man, woman and child in the city. The siege is notable for the mass slaughter of Muslims and Jews perpetrated by the Christian crusaders, which contemporaneous sources suggest was savage and widespread.
Or how about St Bernard when he launched the Second Crusades saying: “The Christian glories in the death of a pagan, because thereby Christ himself is glorified.”
Now? NONE of this had anything to do with your assertions. This had nothing to do with “Christianity should not be blamed for the fact that roman culture completely accepted slavery and killing people for entertainment.”
See, these were Christians being the barbarians. They made it a death penalty punishment to be a Pagan and proceeded to slaughter hundreds of thousands of Pagans in forced conversion programs. The Christians sure as heel loved killing people for entertainment, just look at how they tortured and murdered Pagan priests and priestesses. Why even your Christian Emperor had Pagan children beaten to death for playing with Pagan statutes like a child plays with a doll. Oh and your fellow Christians put many of the Pagans also into slavery, and Christianity has a long freaking history of promoting and approving of the slavery of other people. So stop your damn lying to me will you? There is no damn way YOU are going to get away with lying to me
So explain to me how the Roman barbarians are responsible for the Christians being more barbaric than the Romans were? Especially when Christians proclaimed theirs is a religion above all else, based on love, forgiveness, non-judgment, mercy etc?
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What true meaning of life do Christians or any other god believer have? Let’s take Christians. You are basically brainwashed from birth, through your family and others, to believe in the Christian God and Jesus. And truthfully? They cannot even get it right. You have over 4,200 different denominations of Christianity with about 70 different versions and translations of the bible. If this was the one True Way? Then there would be only one denomination and one version of the bible.
And it is Christians and other god believers who live a miserable life. They do not truly live this life, they exist for their next life, supposedly in heaven. And in this? They truly treat nothing as sacred on this earth. They think their god and Jesus gave them this earth to subdue and conquer. That the top dog are humans and no respect for any other life form matters. I mean most of them cannot wait for their Armageddon, the complete and total destruction of the human race and the planet earth. How sick and twisted is that, that you as a god believer? Cannot wait to see your fellow humans wiped out through wars, etc so your belief in your version of god and religion remains intact?
I’ve been an atheist now for over 40 years. I truly tried to believe and worship this god. But the more I studied the bible, especially the Old Testament and read and studied the actions of this god? I did not find him, in truth, to be loving, merciful, just, no, quite the opposite. A loving, merciful and just god does not sick two she bears on 42 kids and have them ripped to shreds simply for making a joke about a prophets bald head. A loving and caring god does not order his followers to rip the fetuses out of wombs of pregnant women or commands his followers to smash the bodies of infants and children against rocks to murder them. He does not command that a raped virgin must marry her rapist for life, a just god would demand that rapist be put to death really. A just, kind and loving god does not force parents to eat their own children. A just, loving and kind god does not order his followers like Japeth and others to sacrifice their children to their god.
Why would I want to be part of a death cult like this? This is not a life cult, but a death cult, not only waiting for, but ADVOCATING their Armegeddon to have the world wiped out so they can prove their Bronze Age myth of bullshit, horror, hypocrisy, evil, justifications for mass murder and genocide, justifications for child and infant and fetus murder. etc. Well you cannot judge god for his actions. Bullshit. If you say god can judge me? Then that judge better be fucking perfect to judge me, and this god of the bible? Is one brutal, evil, disgusting, foul, genocidal maniac, slaughterer of children, infants and fetuses, promoter of brutal rapes of innocent virgins. Why the hell would you ever call a being like this good, loving, kind, merciful, etc is beyond me. For if there truly is a Satan? Then this god of the Abrahamics would fit that description of Satan perfectly.
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Here is another view.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2013/11/13/american-indians-balance-native-customs-with-christianity
I certainly think all of life is sacred and am focused on enjoying and making a positive difference in this life. I’m grieved if I see a broken robin’s egg, let alone rejoicing if people are going to be wiped out.
Also, Militant, I have a different view of the Bible than many fundamentalist Christian believers. If I happen to read something in the OT that does not sound like the teaching of Jesus, the incarnation of God, who said to care for even an enemy, I’m not feeling this is the unadulterated word of the Lord. I think Scripture does contain and reflect the word of God, but it also contains the words of fallible humans who were growing in their understanding and trying to get it right.
I suppose folks that I need to let this rest, but I think there is this stereotypical view of what the Christians believe and what all the churches teach which is not reflecting the objective reality.
There is a mix within the church just as there is diversity among the traditional beliefs and practices of indigenous people.
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You do realize that Christianity was forced upon us Native Americans right? And most of the elders who are or proclaim themselves Christians are typically the last remenants of those Natives who were kidnapped by Christians or the government and sent to the Christian Industrial Schools? And that this again, was forced upon us all at the point of a gun? How can you say we Native Americans made a free will choice to become a Christian when we had guns pointed to our heads to do so? These were not free will choices to become a Native. It was either choose to become a Christian, or die. So again, how can you say that any of us Native Americans made a free will choice to become Christians when it was literally forced upon us at the pains of brutal death?
And while I understand what you are saying with Natives combining their old ways with Christian, does it still make it right what was done to them and how they were forced to become Christians? Or let me put it this way. If you were under constant threat of starvation, beatings, rapes, and outright murder or you become a Christian, what would you do? Well, your natural survival skills kick in and you do all you can to survive, even if it means bowing down to the Talibans forcing you on your knees to accept and worship their god or be part of their religion. Just to save your life.
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MIlitant, of course, it doesn’t make it right. People who suppose that by force they are able to compel another’s heart have come under a strong delusion. These enforcers may have confessed Christ with their lips, but they betrayed and denied Him by their lives and their actions. Really, they betrayed all of us. What a difference it might have made if both cultures came together in love and peace to learn from one another.
But, sadly, Militant, none of us can change the past. We can only make a difference in the present and work toward a better future. I’ve chosen to follow Christ. I’m not about to allow the abuses and hypocrisy of others to define my faith.
I can certainly understand why Native American people do not want to affiliate with the institutional church. I’m less uncertain why they would not want to follow Jesus. But, I know it is difficult for people to separate this out in their own minds. As far as I know, I don’t have Native American heritage, so I’m certainly not the one to judge this.
But, for myself, I’ve chosen to follow Christ and to make any positive difference that I possibly can.
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I can certainly understand why Native American people do not want to affiliate with the institutional church. I’m less uncertain why they would not want to follow Jesus
It would be the same thing Becky. Christians demanding we follow Jesus? Is the same as their demanding we become Christians like they are. You cannot separate the two. You cannot say to a Native American, well ok, you do not want to join a church, but you should follow Jesus. NO. That is the exact same thing.
And while you may and others may believe Jesus is real? That he actually existed and did and went through what is proclaimed in the bible? There is absolutely no independent evidence besides the bible, that says that Jesus existed. No matter what Christians attempt to proclaim that historians actually wrote about him? Have all proven to be false and literal additions by Christians writers who added these things to these peoples work.
Another thing about your bible. Don’t you find it the least bit interesting that we, the common people, were not allowed to even own a bible for the first 1,200 years of it’s existence? That the only ones who could have a copy of the bible were priests and Kings? That if you were a commoner and had in your possession even a bible verse? YOU could be put to death.
When Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press? His first work was the bible, he wanted to mass produce a bible for common people. The Church? Attacked him. They twice destroyed his press, they destroyed the bibles he had printed, and persecuted him.
Now, ask yourself, why would the Church keep possession of that bible from the common people? Why for the first 1,200 years of that book the only ones who could copy it, or have it in their possessions were the leaders of the Church, the priests of the church or royalty.
And then? You got to ask yourself why did they exclude certain books of the bible that actually? Contradicted much of their teachings?
Another question you also have to ask yourself. The Jews certainly knew who their Messiah was. They prophecised him for centuries in the Old Testament. They proclaimed he would be a warrior savior, who would free them from the chains of bondage and be their leader. But the Christian Jesus? Is the exact opposite of the Jewish Messiah. So how the hell do Christians justify their proclaiming Jesus as a Lord and Savior when even the Jews say no, he is not. Who gave Christians the right to tell the Jews they were wrong?
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Here is another few things you should ask yourself before you take the bible as a book of truth.
1. If this is in fact? As Christians proclaim? The inerrent word of God? Then? There would not be one contradiction, or one mistake in that bible.
2. If this was the word of God? Then there would be only ONE VERSION of the bible, not the hundreds of versions there is now. Heck, Christians cannot even agree with how that bible should be written in the first place.
3. Again, if this was the word of God? Then there would not be 4,200 different denominations of Christianity, with each proclaiming the others are false and they are the only true way of Christianity.
Then? I will ask you to do the following.
1. Compare the description of the Christian Satan, the horned faced, goat footed demon and the description and depictions of the Pagan gods Pan, Cerenunnous. And then? Read the Pagan story of Prometheus. And compare the stories of Satan, his supposed punishment, etc. It will amaze you how much Pan and Cerenunnous looks just like the Christian Satan and the story of Prometheus is almost an exact duplicate of the punishment of Satan being chained.
2. Compare the story of Mithra to the story of Jesus Christ. Amazing how their lives are exactly alike huh?
3. Compare the story of Noah’s Ark with the Gilgamesh Epic. The flood stories are almost exactly the same. And the Gilgamesh Epic appeared long before the Noah’s Ark story.
4. Research the Jewish theory of afterlife. Research the story of Sheol and then ask yourself. If Christians base their religion starting with the Jewish OT? Then why did they change the afterlife stories of the Jews from where all souls go to Sheol and Christians separated this and invented their Heaven and Hell theory? And why would they do so? But if you are going to stick with the Jewish story of the OT as basis for the Christianity of the OT? Then why do Christians change so much of the Jewish theology that actually goes against the Jewish theology of the OT?
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All religions start? With someone proclaiming they are the voice of their god. These are human beings, trying to tell you all about a god etc. Same with Christianity. They invented their god, their Jesus, their bibles, etc and try to tell you that God is behind it all. Well, no god was behind this shit. Just like every religious concept ever worshiped by humans? These are not concepts brought to us by a god or a goddess. These are concepts brought to us by humans.
IF there actually was a god, don’t you think that being would have finally said enough you asshole humans, stop murdering each other over false assertions of who and what I am? Sure, you Christians speak of free will, but that has already been blown out as false. If you actually read the bible, the OT? You will see many times where god interfered with the free will of people. The best example is the story of the Pharoh in the Moses story. He was going to set the Jews free many times, but god hardened his heart and messed with his free will.
But most god believers? Most Christians and Muslims? Were brainwashed into believing this shit from a young age. First? Our parents typically put this in our heads. And then? We are forced to believe by horror stories. Scaring kids with a place like hell? Would make any kid believe.
BUT? When has Christians and Muslims truly questioned their belief systems? When have they truly asked the hard questions? Like who actually is proclaiming this? Who is teaching me this? Why should I believe in this shit? Who invented it in the first place? How did that book we are told to believe in as the word of god get created?
This is what actually started me on the road to Atheism. I even started questioning in second grade Catholic School. We were having a discussion on the Genesis verse, and we made them in our image, male and female we made like unto us. And I popped off how that verse then proves? There is a female god. Because a male cannot make a female in it’s image, a female cannot make a male in it’s image, and if there are females and males on the earth and they are made in their images? Then there has to be a female god to create the females and a male god to create the males. Oh boy did I get into shit for that one. Put into a corner with a dunce cap on, but I laughed my ass off because I knew? I was right.
I questioned EVERYTHING. Researched EVERYTHING. And I came to find? That humans created Christianity. That no god or Jesus had a hand in any of this. That Jesus? Is nothing more than a creation tool used to control fellow human beings by those who are powerful and rich. The very rise of this Christian religion proves it. The history of Christianity proves the falsehood of it’s teachings.
And this is what I tell all Christians and Muslims. Instead of accepting all this shit on “faith” that it is truth? Search the truth yourself. Study how this book of yours came to being and how this religion came to be. Study how the Christians stole practically everything from the Pagans and converted it to Christian use. All your holidays, Christmas, Easter, etc? Are all direct rip offs of the Pagan holy days and their rituals. So actually? In essence? All Christians truly are? Are in the closet practicing Pagans lol.I mean 90% of your rituals, holidays etc? Are all ripped off from the Pagans.
So in all honesty? No Christian can call themselves a Christian, but should start calling themselves Pagans lol.
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MIlitant, good for you. I was also very questioning as a young child and at one point became agnostic. But, one difference between us is that I was not reared in a church that discouraged or punished questioning. On the contrary, it was thought questioning could also lead to a deeper and more mature faith. To me, I think it’s healthy.
I think we would be talking a very long time if I tried to address all these points. Although, I’ve thought deeply about most of them.
I’ll address one thing, Militant, that I feel strongly about it. It involves this doctrine of the inerrancy of the Bible. IMO, this teaching has caused more mischief in the Christian church than just about anything else in the world. The teaching of inerrancy as a formal doctrine did not even come into existence until around the time of the reformation.
I think part of the reason that the church attempted to prevent the common people from reading the Bible was out of fear and to maintain control. The reformers, who certainly had their own problems, spoke against this. In all fairness, the Roman church also eventually reformed in this area and does make the Scripture available to the laity, and sponsors Bible study.
But, I’m digressing, for many the teaching of inerrancy has completely become tied to their personal faith in Jesus Christ.
This is why there is so much effort put forth to justify things we read in the OT that certainly does not square with the love of Christ at all.
Or, these dear brothers and sisters are ready to tie themselves up into a pretzel to try to explain things that really can defy explanation. At the very least, sometimes we are simply better off to say we don’t know or are uncertain, IMO.
I guess I’m jumping all over the place.
But, anyway, Christian people in mainline churches, in general, do not reason in this way. Whether God floated a boat and caused a flood to cover the whole earth has nothing in the world to do with the apostolic witness of the resurrection of Jesus. It’s totally a different issue.
I personally believe, and so do many scholars that certain parts of Scripture are written to be understood allegorically not literally.
I certainly think there are parallels between the Christian faith and mythology of the time. But, I don’t
know that it follows that one arbitrarily borrowed from the other. There are also significant differences as well, or sometimes the similarity can be exaggerated. In the case of Mithra, there are also scholars who believe that later expressions of Mithra may have actually borrowed from Christian teaching and not the other way around.
Militant, you have suffered greatly in the church. It fills me with total sorrow.
Is it likely even if someone were able to address every one of these concerns and objections that you would change your views and become open to faith in Christ?
I feel that one of the greatest tragedies and mistakes made in the past when sharing the gospel with indigenous cultures is that the gospel was not contextualized, and the people’s own insights and practices were not also respected. We all need to be open to learning from each other.
I’ve appreciated talking with you, Militant, and will give you the last word in all this.
Deep peace, healing, and every blessing come into your life, Militant.
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Christians themselves Becky, destroyed any faith I could ever have about your god or Jesus. After all these years of studying what Christians have done to others in the name of their god, the name of their Jesus and the name of their Christianity? Proved to me beyond any shadow of a doubt, that if this god was real? Then it was no god I would ever want to bow down and worship EVER. This god is a true monster, a true evil, vile demon. If it stood by and allowed Christians to commit mass murder, mass genocides, wars, tortures of their fellow human beings? And did nothing to stop it? Or if he allowed hundreds of thousands of innocent children to be brutally raped by Christian priests and pastors in his own churches and did nothing to stop it? Then in my eyes? That god is a monster and deserves absolutely no worship, but true condemnation. For if an all powerful, all knowing, all seeing god cannot just say to his Christians NO you do not murder Pagans, torture women as witches, slaughter whole towns of people, or attempt to wipe out whole nations of people in my name and the name of my son and the name of Christianity? Then that god and his son Jesus? Approved of it all. And again? They do not deserve worship, only condemnation.
Then? Look at the true character of the god you worship. He is truly revealed in the Old Testament.
You truly read what he did to just fetuses, infants and children in the Old Testament? If no one ever told you that those stories came from the bible, if you had no clue that those stories were ever in the bible, and someone read them to you, would you honestly call that god a good, holy, loving, caring, just, moral being? Hell no, most people would call a being like that an absolute monster.
A being that forces parents to eat their own children? How the fuck do you justify that a god has parents cannibalize their own children? Or dare call that holy and just to the children who were cannibalized?
How do you justify or call holy a being who himself murdered innocent first born children AFTER he messed with the free will of the Pharoah? The Pharoah was going to set free the Jews many times, but each time he was? God hardened his heart against doing so and in the end? God purposefully murdered all those first born children of Egypt! WHY??? He did not have to do that, all he had to do was not harden Pharoahs heart and let the Jews go free.
Again? If you are going to worship a god? At least pick one who does not order his followers to rip the fetuses out of the wombs of pregnant women, smash the bodies of infants and children against rocks to murder them, orders sarifice of innocent children, forces parents to cannibalize their own children, orders raped virgins to marry their rapists for life, or orders the stoning death of a raped woman simply because she did not scream loud enough to be heard, Or at the very least? NEVER call such a being holy, loving, just, merciful, etc because all the damn stories of him in the OT sure the hell does not prove he is anything like he is described.
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Becky, you wrote: but I think there is this stereotypical view of what the Christians believe and what all the churches teach which is not reflecting the objective reality.
I hope you realize this perspective places you solidly in the minority. There are more Christians that live (and die) by the “Word of the Lord” (assisted of course by their oh-so-knowledgeable leaders) than there are those who take the more “loving” approach that you assert is your stance.
And it for this reason that people like Militant — and so many others — criticize, berate, and lambast the “holier-than-thou” individuals who talk about the “love of Jesus.” Until this “love” is demonstrated, it is nothing by a proclamation with a very hollow ring.
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What Becky and other Christians just cannot fathom or understand, most of us who are “Christians” in the Native American nations? Are Christians because it was forced upon us by the pains of brutal death and slaughter.
For me? A Christian telling me, or any Native American to become a Christian? is like a Nazi telling a Jew to become a Nazi or a black man or woman to join the KKK. Why should any group of people, historically persecuted and put to death by Christians would want to become a Christian is beyond me, but it goes to prove the insane, deep-seated brain-washing through brutality and murder and under threats of death can have upon people persecuted and put to death in large numbers by Christians.
I mean Christians in fact? Committed the worst case of mass genocide in recorded human history against us Native Americans. But to hear them say it? They saved us Native Americans from our savagery and stupidity and ignorance. Really? By marching us on forced death marches to reservations that we called death camps so that Christians could continue to wipe us off the face of the earth by killing off all our game we hunted to starve us to slow deaths? But hey, we Native Americans are just supposed to do the “Christian thing” and turn the other cheek to all that Christians have done to us, and become a Christians?
Again, that is like telling a Jew to join the Nazi party or a black person to join the KKK. But Christians cannot understand this.
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“Until this love is demonstrated, it is nothing but a proclamation with a very hollow ring.” You are so right, spot on, Nan.
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Nan, I want to jump back in and say that I’m uncertain about the exact percentage of church people who would view the Scripture in the way that I’ve shared. I will say that in the ELCA, my current denomination, and definitely in TEC, my previous church, my view would predominant especially among the clergy. I don’t think there is any mainline seminary that would teach differently.
But, for whatever reason, it is usually the more fundamentalist Christians who are more vocal and evangelistic in their approach and views. So, they are getting more press, so to speak. I don’t know though if their views are truly the majority across the board.
This would be an enlightening study. However, even if they are, the majority is not always correct. Sometimes it’s really an unpopular or minority view that reflects more truth.
When I get a chance, I’m going to give this more study., along with learning more about Native American culture.
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