What Would Jesus Tolerate?

15th June 2007

posted in Society by themaiden |

Damn sure wouldn’t tolerate you! Not according to Dave Daubenmire.

Why is it that the media wants to focus on Christian leaders who are so accepting of everyone? Is there an agenda at work here? Are they trying to show us that Christian men are tolerant and loving of everyone and everything? WWJT? What would Jesus tolerate?

Dave Daubenmire — Why did Jesus Come?

Jesus, you see, came to “destroy the works of the devil”. None of this ‘being nice’ BS. “Nice” doesn’t even appear in the Bible, god-damnit! Oops… strike that “God’s name in vain” part. Hmmm… come to think of it, God being non-existent as he is, taking his name at all, under any circumstances, is taking his name in vain. My God! We’re doomed!

Oh… and “He didn’t come to die for you.” He came to kick ass– your ass, you sinful bastard.

It isn’t that I care about the theology, per se. It’s that this theology doesn’t stay at home and out of trouble. This theology creeps out into the world and steps on everybody’s toes. This theology preaches such behavior. After all…

The world is becoming a crazier place every day. Sin is running unchecked because no one will call it what it is because it has become one of the pillars of diversity. All sickness, all sadness, all poverty, all anger, all grief, all trouble is the result of somebody’s sin. Our churches have become nothing more than trauma centers for those ravaged by the effects of society’s decadence.

Dave Daubenmire — Why did Jesus Come?

( Phenomenal ignorance of history? Check. The world is not getting crazier. It has always been bloody nuts. If anything it is getting slowly more sane as faith in mythology dies leisurely and thinking takes its place. But then, those are the trends Dave opposes. )

So what do you do? Rail against it, of course.

Sin is the disease, death is the result. Not calling sin, sin is like calling adultery “fooling around.” Doesn’t it make more sense to prevent the sin of divorce, rather than helping restore those ravaged by it? “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Dave Daubenmire — Why did Jesus Come?

To make his point, Dave talks about “driving in the beautiful Rocky Mountains and as you come around a bend, you are horrified to see bodies of wounded people strewn along the roadway”. People, apparently, are falling off of a cliff. Dave suggests that rather than treat the wounded on the pavement it might be better to just go up and warn people about the cliff.

True enough… if the cliff were not a figment of the mythologically inclined imagination. The people laying smashed up on the ground are only smashed up relative to Dave’s faith in a very old book. Those not sharing Dave’s faith may feel very differently about their state of smashed-up-ed-ness. Therein lies the problem really. Dave and those like him seem inclined to fix the smashed up people anyway, not bothering with such things as finding out whether the people are actually injured or, if they are injured, with finding out what actually injured them. No. Old Book says “Bad” therefore “Bad”. Old Book says “Imaginary Cliff” therefore people are being injured by falling off of the imaginary cliff. Brilliant. Unfortunately, it isn’t necessarily true. The Old Book’s stranglehold on thought and on society in the West may actually be causing the injury, but no matter.

I’ve got to be careful here and not give the impression that I think Dave has no right to say what he wants. That isn’t the point. Railing is one thing and Dave can rail all he wants so long as he sticks to railing, annoying as it is. But preaching intolerance leads pretty quickly to acting intolerantly. That is the point. That is the disgusting part, though I suppose those thumping an Old Book don’t mind much. The Old Book is right there with all the answers and damn those real world problems. Damn those real world people.

And the problem with acting intolerantly is that we all have to live together whether we agree with each other or not. We tolerate each other or what? Arrest dissenters? Go to war? What? The options are pretty limited.

Yes, I am aware that this is not how the faithful would perceive things.

Popularity: 1%

Love the post? Hate it? Please let me know. Leave a comment and spread the word: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 15th, 2007 at 9:36 am and is filed under Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On June 15th, 2007, RBH said:

“Coach” Dave never was the brightest bulb on the tree, even a tree whose bulbs on average are dimmer than most. Even when he was a coach in a local public school here he wasn’t noted for his insight.

2 On June 15th, 2007, themaiden said:

RBH,

Personal experience, eh? That is always nice. None too bright you say? Well, I guess he is well suited to Biblical Exegesis then. You can’t be too bright or you start worrying about all that not making sense.

3 On June 15th, 2007, JR said:

God would must prefer you stay in an abusive, loveless relationship than get divorced. God doesn’t care what’s in your heart, just what you pretend is there. God designed the world with all the fun stuff being sins so that if you deny yourself joy for your entire life, only then are you worthy of heaven. Nothing cruel or wicked there.

BTW God, I never asked Jesus to die for my sins. I’m quite content with them. They’re the only thing that make life enjoyable, and your devout followers who try to deny themselves sin only to fail miserably (and publicly) are prime examples of that. They try to fix in others what they cannot fix in themselves, pass laws against the very same things they are discovered to be doing. That makes them come across as hypocrites, and another trait of the humans you designed is that no one likes a hypocrite.

Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquizitor was right: you set the bar a bit too high.

4 On June 15th, 2007, Stephen said:

I agree with what you saying. At my college, we had a group of “Open Air Outreach” people come and start calling everyone sinners, not to mention that we were all going to hell… What we call that is Fundamentalism, going by the “exact” words in the Bible. The Bible is written sort of like the Constitution, open for debate and opinion, and I agree that Davie has the right to say what he wants. How strange is it, though, that it’s Fundamentalist Christians ruling the country warning us of terrorist Fundamentalist Islamics? I guess you could almost call it ideological warfare… *cough*Crusades*cough*

thanks for your blog,

Stephen

5 On June 16th, 2007, kip152 said:

Why is it that Christians are the most hateful group in America? I just posted a little piece on the fact that they seem to be obsessed with doing the very sins they condemn others to hell for.

6 On June 16th, 2007, themaiden said:

Hi Kip,

It is a tough call. Given that such a high percentage of people in the country claim christianity, there is a good chance that any nasty person you pick from a crowd will be christian, which makes getting a clean look at things difficult. Still, I’ll stick my neck out and say that the nastiest people I’ve known have for the most part been the most devout christians I’ve known. The OT is a vicious piece of work, but Jesus (as painted in the NT) preached enough love and kindness though that the correlation just doesn’t make much sense.

7 On June 17th, 2007, Heidi said:

Folks like this worship the creeds and traditions and their own sense of self-importance. I like Jesus. I don’t think any of this has much to do with his message. It’s sad to see what can be done in his name.

8 On June 17th, 2007, themaiden said:

Hello Heidi,

The Jesus in the NT is a schizophrenic figure. I think this has to do with the NT being a constructed account of his life more than a historical one, meaning that by the time the gospels where written the story had already become mythologized and several factions were fighting for legitimacy. Whether he is likable or not depends a bit upon which part you read. Still, as I said, he preached enough love and kindness…

9 On July 7th, 2007, Friendly Atheist » Carnival of the Godless #70 said:

[...] at Hell’s Handmaiden also talks about sin when referencing this piece by Christian writer Dave Daubenmire: Dave and those like him seem [...]

10 On July 11th, 2007, Greta Christina said:

“Why is it that the media wants to focus on Christian leaders who are so accepting of everyone?… Sin is running unchecked because no one will call it what it is.”

Um… what planet is he living on, exactly? When I turn on my TV, it seems like intolerant, bigoted preachers gassing on about sin and hell are rampant, with a large and very public platform.

But then, victimhood is one of the keys to the Christian Right, isn’t it? Claiming that you’re oppressed and beleaguered and in process of being thrown to the lions, when in fact you’re part of the single most populous and politically powerful religious group in the country.

Sheesh.