Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
That's a pretty weak and completely false attempt to link my beliefs to Hitler. The God I believe in is a God of patience, mercy and love. Hitler had none of these traits. Now God does not love sin. Likewise, I do not love the sin of homosexuality. Apparently you do. But I harbor no hate for homosexuals. None at all. My position all along is that they should have the right to live that lifestyle if it makes them happy. I only protest when they start interfering with our freedom of religion.
OTOH, the Nazis were unbelievably cruel. I just saw a film called Anthropoid and found myself literally weeping in the theater at the end after learning about the sacrifices and pain that the Czech people had to endure under Hitler's rule. The Nazis ruled by fear. And fear is of the devil.
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Fear is exactly the tool of christian fundamentalism. Your faith is founded in fear. You are afraid to go to hell. You are afraid of those different from you. You are afraid of immigrants. You are afraid of appearing unfaithful (which you are as are most of us). You are afraid of Hillary while intending to vote for a narcissistic madman. You are, as many social psychologists have pointed out, fundamentally insecure.
Insecure people seek certainty. You are insecure and that is why fundamentalist religion appeals to you--you mistakenly think it has certainty when Jesus taught us not to be concerned with what may happen tomorrow but be grateful for what we have today.
You may differ from Hitler in that you do not wish to murder homosexuals---but like Hitler you wish to refuse them the right to shop freely in any market (Jews were refused the ability to shop freely) and would refuse them the right to marry (Jews were by law denied the right to marry Aryans. In other words, your fear, like Hitler's, demands you "control" those around you while granting yourself special privileges like tax breaks for a religion promoting fear.
”But fearful questions never led to love-filled answers; underneath every fearful question many other
fearful questions are hidden…. Fear engenders fear. Fear never gives birth to love. A careful look at the
gospels shows that Jesus seldom accepted the questions posed to him. He exposed them as coming from
the house of fear. ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? How often must I forgive my brother if
he wrongs me? Is it against the law for a man to divorce his wife on any pretext whatever? What authority
do you have for acting like this? … Are you the king of the Jews? Lord, has the hour come? Are you
going to restore the kingdom to Israel?…’ To none of these questions did Jesus give a direct answer. He
gently put them aside as questions emerging from false worries. They were raised out of concern for
prestige, influence, power, and control. They did not belong to the house of God. Therefore Jesus always
transformed the question by his answer. He made the question new – and only then worthy of his
response.”
(Henri Nouwen, Lifesigns: Intimacy, Fecundity, and Ecstasy in Christian Perspective, 16-19).
As Nouwen pointed out, “fear engenders fear. Fear never gives birth to love.” Because those who seek
out Fundamentalism are likely to be very fearful people questing the certainty that fundamentalism
promises, and which they perceive it provides, they are not likely be particularly loving people.
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