Why do people find it so hard to follow their own religion? April 2, 2007
Posted by Sharny in : Uncategorized , trackbackYesterday I watched a documentary on the Westboro Baptist Church. Now, let me get this straight, I don’t actually have a problem with “fundamentalism”. Why? I believe very strongly in freedom of speech and belief and I would fight very hard for someone to be able to say something that I disagree with. Some people might find that strange but I look at it this way, the moment someone is not allowed to express their beliefs through words (not through violence and not in a way that insights violence) then my beliefs become at risk. So long as everyone can express their beliefs I know I can as well, and that makes me feel safe. Now, back to the topic in hand, the WBC seem to be a prime example of “fundamentalism”. Fundamentalism is basically strong literal interpretation of religious text. See here’s where my problems arise, the Westboro Baptist Church are prime examples of what fundamentalism seems to mean at the moment, they take a very small part of the bible literally (or perhaps not, some of the quotes on godhatesfags.com seem very ambiguous) and then turn that into their major belief. Now I really, really can’t see how this works. Ok, so these “Christians” seem to think they are getting into heaven but quite frankly, according to their own religious text, they won’t be.
The belief that homosexuality is wrong comes primarily from Leviticus 20:13 “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” Now that’s fair enough, if you are a Christian you believe that the bible is the word of God and so you heed it. What’s interesting is a few other portions of Leviticus, here God really is laying down the law. Leviticus 11:9-12 says:
“These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat. And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you: They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination. Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.” So essentially, God doesn’t want you to eat shellfish. I guess this really makes me wonder when was the last time I saw the WBC protesting against “Shrimp Enablers” or picketing sea food restaurants with signs saying “Shellfish eaters die God laughs”. Yeah, that’s what I thought as well. And that really is far from the only thing, if you read Leviticus you will find a huge number of different things you have to do, otherwise you are either going to be killed, be childless or cut off from your people.
So this applies to all Christians that like to take any part of the Bible (particularly the Old Testament) literally. If you believe that homosexuality is wrong because that’s what the Bible says then you surely must also believe a whole load of other laws, you surely must shun any those committing the abomination of eating shellfish. There is perhaps a bit of ambiguity when it comes to the translations from the original Hebrew but really if you decide that only Leviticus 20:13 is worth listening to that’s just blatantly to cover up severe homophobia, which is really what I think is the true cause of this gay hate. I would really love to hear a response to this, mainly because I have yet to hear a Christian argue that their Bible remains worthy of belief when so much of it is either completely ignored by Christians or just complete nonsense.
Then comes my other part of this, the way the WBC protests against this stuff totally seems to go against everything that Christianity really stands for. Really, I don’t think that any of these “fundamentalists” are responding in a way that Jesus himself would appreciate, he was all about love, loving sinners, loving neighbours, loving people you don’t like and loving people that you do. Regardless of what these people say (for example that they are displaying their love by trying to educate and therefore “save” these people from their lives of sin) I think this really has to come down to deep rooted problems. Even as an atheist I pity these people that seem to call themselves Christian but have failed to truly understand the message of Christ. Ultimately, the WBC is a very small minority of the Christian world but I still see quite a lot in what they say reflected in those people who seem to be more in touch with reality.
The first part of that documentary can be found here if you feel like getting a bit of an idea of what I’m talking about.
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