by Dongtini — Episode 104
March 28, 2014 in Podcast by dongtini
On this episode: a Very Jesus Dongtini™ in which atheist Simone reads a Christian email forward and Stephy is pissed about the World Vision bullshit. Also: Mark Driscoll’s “apology,” atheism for Lent, a Sonic Youth debate, Harry Potter’s wiener, Kevin Trudeau, words we hate, and a monumental new development in Simone’s Pasta Sauce Drive has transpired.
Listen now or right click to download and listen later!
A Young Doctor’s Notebook starring Jon Hamm and Daniel Radcliffe can be found on Netflix streaming!
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Kevin Trudeau Infomercial – “Your Wish Is Your Command”
Here is your one stop shop for Mars Hill semblances of apology: Mark Driscoll’s apology, Jeff Breakfast’s apology, former Mars Hill pastor’s apologies, and former Mars Hill pastors call for an evacuation of Mars Hill.
Dongtini sponsors kids in need! Choose a charity! Both are great, but one can’t be forced to discriminate against gays.
Plan is the secular organisation through which Simone sponsors a child (she signed up since the recording!) and has sponsored through previously. Click on the image to sponsor a child today!
World Vision is the Christian Organisation through which Stephy sponsors a child. Click on the image to sponsor a child today!
Closing song: Handsome Family — “Far From Any Road”
I have a serious question for progressive Christians in the wake of this World Vision fiasco. Not sure if anyone reads the comments here but I’m putting it here as opposed to in a call to the Dongline because I don’t mean to just dump this on Stephanie, this is for everyone.
My question is this: How is this not making you question your faith? If someone went around doing hateful things and telling everyone they have to do it because they’re my friend I would sure as hell have something to say about it, I imagine most of us would. So why isn’t God saying anything? No matter how horribly Christians behave, no matter how abusive or petty or bullying they get in the name of Christ, Heaven is silent. So from this it means either:
a) God exists but has no interest in humanity and couldn’t care less what we do here in which case, why worship and pray to this God at all?
b) God exists but he approves of all this and is exactly as petty and cruel as his followers claim. Why would you want to have that God as your God?
OR
c) There is silence because there is no one there. This seems to me to be the most logical conclusion. When you think about it, when has God ever said anything? You never hear God telling us anything, all you get are people claiming God told *them* something and you should listen to them. Seems to be that atheism makes by far the most sense and that “god” is just something people use to either motivate themselves towards altruism or to justify their personal bigotries.
If anyone has a (d)or (e) I would love to hear it. However the whole thing about God respecting our free will and choice too much to intervene doesn’t match up to anything in the Bible because that God sure as shit intervened all the time so I don’t know how anyone can believe that and still think themselves Christian. What is the difference between a god who works so slowly and invisibly that it’s indistinguishable from the evolution of human morality and no god at all?
Eugene, I’m making this comment of the day on the SCCL facebook page.
Thank you so much! That led to some interesting conversations!
It did! That was amazing!
1. Quoted on Dongtini, booyah, validation.
2. Yes, i’m a sad, strange little man.
3. Atheism for Lent should amount to only acting on things without extensive belief, rather than extensive belief with no action.
4. Regarding the above question, isnt that sort of like asking “how can you be American when you’ve had presidents like the Bush’s”?
Assholes don’t negate my experience with and belief in God.
Todd. Yes.
Todd!
1. Yay!
2. Awww, no you’re not.
3. Agreed.
4. (Here we go!) Absolutely not the same thing at all! The ways in which people are Americans or Christians are totally different. You become American (typically) by being born in the United States or born overseas to US citizens. They make you say the Pledge of Allegiance but even if you don’t agree with it in your mind, you remain legally American, no matter how terrible the Bushes were. Typicaly, to be a Christian (or any religion), one is born into it and only because that’s what the people surrounding them taught them. It’s purely a difference of what one is taught and there’s nothing legally binding about it. So, when we are taught something based on the idea that God is good and powerful, and then shit starts to happen which would make you question that, then there’s an opportunity to re-evaluate what we believe. Being American is a status of citizenship that can only be legally changed. Being Christian or any religion is a belief that can be changed when re-evaluating available information.
So, I think Eugene’s question really was, “Don’t all of these contradictions in what God is supposed to be make you re-evaluate what you believe since he wont step up and explain otherwise?” People tend not to have religious experiences and say “Y’know, this actually felt more like a very Hindu experience!” It gets attributed to the God they were taught about from birth which I think says a lot about the experiences themselves! If people had more experiences that were out of their original religion it would be very interesting, but that’s not really what you see other than girls getting sucked in with a guru in India on their post high school graduation trip of a lifetime! Questioning experiences should be part of the whole questioning process because the human mind does all kinds of weird things that can’t be trusted and that’s very provable just with different people giving different accounts of the same event they all experienced. It was evaluating my own experiences when I was 18 that some serious questions started to be raised!
No, that analogy would only work if Bush was the only president America ever had or would ever have and if he was supposed to be all good, all knowing and all powerful. We’re talking about GOD here and the fact that if he’s around he’s either asleep at the wheel or in complete agreement with the assholes.
The thing with those assholes though, they don’t wake up in the morning thinking “I’m going to go treat gays/women/poor people like total garbage today and bully them until they want to kill themselves”, they consider themselves earnestly standing up for their faith and their God and His Will. They see themselves as doing the right thing (with the possible exception of total trolls like Phelps). All I’m saying is, God could fix that. If he existed he could fix all these horrible doctrines in a day. All He would have to do was say something. But He didn’t. He never ever does. Through the crusades, the pogroms, the ethnic cleansings, the inquisitions, the witch trials, the rampant abuse, there is just no thing done in His name so heinous that it gets any response.
The idea that He is silent because he’s not there just makes way more sense.
All I will say to this is that my experiences are very different from many other people’s experiences, and theirs from mine. I want to fully allow them their experiences and I need them to fully allow me mine. They absolutely may and should question everything. I continue to question everything. I hold it all in tension. I am so appreciative of people who will acknowledge the possibility of something beyond what they understand, and I strive to allow that same possibility to others.