harmless religion

I saw an old acquaintance who told me why she no longer speaks to a mutual acquaintance who no longer speaks with me. Seems the mutual acquaintance did the same thing she did with my old acquaintance that she did with me. The mutual acquaintance was totally indoctrinated with NPR (and Maggie Jackson) type anger against Christian, and kept being snide about how evil and unenlightened Christians were. She went on with this although she knows Christians who are all very decent folks.

So there are these hateful folks out there who hate christians cause christians are supposedly hateful...meanwhile we're quite willing to be friends with them and not drop them but ...they get nasty with us by generalizing and analyzing and just saying cruel things about us and our religion. Not to mention the guilt-tripping. Like I a black person in the 20th century, ( a century where Christians have been persecuted by atheists (Stalin and China), Moslems, Hindu fundamentalists) am personally responsible for what oil-stealing white guys in Washington do. (Of course no one blames Buddhism for wars and devastations caused by Emperor Hirohito and other past Buddhist leaders but somehow Christianity will always be blamed for what the Crusaders, the inquisition, and western imperialist who happened to be christians did.)

They think they are so spiritual and say religion is harmful or they say they want a religion that "has never done any harm." I remember this girl saying that's why she converted to Judaism ::rolling eyes:: I was like. So that's the criteria for a religion now? Harmlessness.

First of all, a religion is not what its adherents do or not do.Or else Judaism would be responsible for the evils the israeli does to the the Palestinians. I totally think Israel deserves to survive but let's face it...both governments of these two groups are pretty nasty and mean to each other.

Second of all, atheists have not been harmless. (Stalin, Mao Tse Tung)

Thirdly, how does one define harmfulness? Is Israel harmless because it is "merely defending itself?"

Fourthly: Liking a religion because it is harmless, or aesthetically beautiful, or has logical doctrine, just isn't the way a religions should be judged. There are spirits in the world, there are spiritual matters that need to be addressed. Does the religion address them in a way one feels it should? I, for one, simply could not be a Buddhist. I could not -- like Buddha-- decide that well suffering happens to everyone (else) and I must learn to live with it.

And on a totally personal level, what is harm to me? My feelings being hurt. So if someone sits around saying harmful things to me because it's chic to pick on Christians, does that measure up to great harm? I have had so many moments where Buddhists, Jews, and atheists say something so utterly cruel about Christians and Christianity because they could get away with it...and because they feel it's okay to be snide to Christians. Hey, I don't say anything mean. So, let's get our definition of harmfulness down.

This is not to say that some Christians aren't nasty, judgmental, and downright hateful and creepy...but it's to say that folks of other religions and non-religions are just as nasty. So the fingering of Christians as so incredibly bad is not valid. Okay, sorry...had to get all that off my chest. -C