I must go and see the beekeeper

[vovat]

Two totally different things I was thinking of the other day:

1. Is it just me, or are certain high-profile fundamentalist Christians doing more to undermine their own belief system than skeptics ever could? You'll get people like Jack Chick and the makers of hell houses, and apparently the writers of the Left Behind series as well, reducing the Protestant doctrine of salvation through faith alone to essentially just a mantra about Jesus dying for your sins. ("Yeah, sure, Jesus, I believe in you. Now gimme one o' them sweet halo-and-harp get-ups!") They'll say, "It's easy! All you have to do is believe!", but I don't think real, honest-to-God (literally, in this case) belief IS that simple. What's more, people who subscribe to this simplified version of Christianity will come up with big, long lists of things you're not supposed to do: use drugs, look at pornography, have sex outside marriage, swear, have abortions, read Harry Potter, participate in fantasy role-playing games, be gay, use the scientific method, etc. But then they'll say that any of these sins will be forgiven if you believe. Somehow I don't think "God is all-forgiving" is exactly the same as "God doesn't give a crap what you do as long as you believe the right thing." And, of course, if you don't do any of these sinful things but also don't believe in Jesus, then you're going to the same Hell you would if you shot up a school, looked at a Playboy, or determined the age of the Earth based on actual evidence. So aren't they kind of saying these sins don't even matter? When your religion is that narrow, what's the point of claiming you believe in the whole big, long Bible? Your whole belief system could be summed up in a few sentences.

2. I have no intention of seeing Bee Movie, but what I've seen in the previews spawned a rather nerdy complaint that an op-ed contributor to The New York Times also had. Isn't the sole purpose of male bees to mate with the queen? The workers are all female. I believe it's the same way with ants, and A Bug's Life (which I did see, and thought was pretty good overall) also had a male worker in its lead role. Yeah, I know they're just cartoons, and cartoons (like any fiction) can disregard reality at times. But I guess I figure that, if you're trying to sell one unrealistic idea (like, say, talking animals), the best way to maintain verisimilitude is to keep these animals realistic in all other respects.

Comments

[dragonxbait.livejournal.com]

RE: Fundamentalist doctrine- I think the underlying idea is that everyone is a sinner and God views all sins as being equally horrible. There is this idea that nothing you do will make you worthy, only the grace of God- so you have to turn your life over to him and be "born again", etc. I really don't understand the strong focus on certain sins- homosexuality, abortion, etc over other ones and I don't think it is particularly biblical- Since Jesus associated with some of the worst sinners of his day and was compassionate and kind to them.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I think the underlying idea is that everyone is a sinner and God views all sins as being equally horrible.

Yes, but my point is that this basically means all sins are equally irrelevant, because believers are going to Heaven no matter how many of them they commit, and non-believers are going to Hell no matter what.

That said, it's also true that there's a lot of hypocrisy, and even though fundamentalists CLAIM that all sins are equally bad to God, they still focus more on some than others (homosexuality being a significant one). And sometimes they'll go on and on about things that aren't even condemned in the Bible, like alcohol. (What, they think Jesus made water into wine, but didn't want anyone to drink it?) I've also ranted before about how silly it is for such people to try to force people who don't share their belief system to follow their rules (like attempting to outlaw gay marriage) when their own religion tells them this would be utterly pointless.

[jenhime.livejournal.com]

The mostly male Bee Moovie bugs me too. (No pun intended.) I won't be seeing it, just like I refused to see Barnyard because the leads we male "cows" -- they had udders! Blah. Let me guess, there just aren't any women that could possibly take the demanding role of a cartoon lead? Whatever...

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I don't think I noticed that about Barnyard, but yeah, that kind of thing does bother me. I think I've also seen cartoons that had male kangaroos with pouches. This is definitely the case in the Zelda Oracle games, but since Link's other animal companions are a flying bear and a swimming triceratops, I might be willing to accept that Hyrulian zoology is quite different from ours.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

1. Some day, when I have time to ramble about things, I'm going to ramble about the nature of religion and faith and how the two interact (I'm also, separately, planning to ramble about the Overemphasis on Weight in Healthy Eating Initiatives, the Assumption That People Who Need Public Assistance are Stupid and At The Same Time Forces Them to Make Stupid Choices, and My Inability To Keep a Tidy House, although that last bit would be rather ironic since if I had time to ramble about it, ostensibly I'd have time to make a dent in the housetidying). You really only slightly touched on that topic in this, but enough to remind me that I have to ramble on that sometime. But in answer to the first question, most definitely, but more for the general close-minded hypocrisy than for the faith/behavior paradox, which exists among the less extreme as well.

2. you know what, that is probably one of the subconscious things that freaks me out about that movie.