Mocking Christianity

[Ihatepcos]

I am so sick of people thinking it's okay to ridicule Catholicism and Christianity. This is especially apparent on Mumsnet. Every time there's a thread about religion I can't even read the replies because they're so awful.

The same doesn't seem to apply to the Muslim, Jewish, Hindu faiths etc.

If you don't believe in God that is your choice. But purposely mocking someone's faith and calling it a load of bullshit (and worse) is just not acceptable. So many people turn to faith to help them through extremely tough times in life and you are mocking the only thing that is keeping them going.

OED definition of a religion: 'Action or conduct indicating belief in, obedience to, and reverence for a god, gods, or similar superhuman power; the performance of religious rites or observances.'

Nature is pretty awesome and certainly bigger than humans.

Dismissive seems like a strange vibe to go for on a discussion forum, but OK.

@SerendipityJane I'm not sure I can believe in nature. I mean, does it need it? It would be a bit like believing in toast.

I'm not being dismissive, @ConcordeOoter , I just don't understand the point that you're making with your screed.

The action or conduct is key to the definition really, so maybe you'd have to be in some sort of eco cult for that to count.

@ConcordeOoter I'm not sure that you need to be in an organised religion to be religious. Or to worship nature, if that is what you want.

Who said anything about believing ? I just noted that nature is pretty fucking awesome. In the same way God would be awesome. If they existed.

I just noted that nature is pretty fucking awesome. In the same way God would be awesome. If they existed.

I agree that nature is indeed pretty fucking awesome. Especially volcanoes.

I can’t be doing with religion, mainly because as a gay woman I just don’t believe that there’s a god who made everything and made everyone but somehow made us gays more faulty or sinful or ‘unnatural’ compared to everyone else.
Nor do I like that someone else’s personal belief in the mystical somehow impacts on some of my basic, human rights.

@weatherthestorms

I don’t believe God said anything about gay people (the NT part of the Bible is the words of the disciples, don’t know OT).

Religion historically has interpreted that way - your relationship with God ( if you so choose to seek one) is your business.

How could gayness be wrong in the eyes of someone who believes in God? It doesn’t make sense to me - we are all created in his image ( or her image, actually😁)

I agree Op. It seems to be fine to mock Christianity especially on here, in a way that other religions aren't. I'd say Christianity is far more tolerant than most other religions too. If people said about other religions the same as they do about Christianity the thread would be reported and taken down quickly.

Satire ?

Careful now, you've just made a disparaging comment towards an individual and a collective. You're dangerously close breaking your "no mocking is acceptable" stance.

Also, I'm 99% sure I see you regularly mocking other groups on all manner of topics. Maybe take some of your own advice?

@Thebestwaytoscareatory last week I was accused of being possessed by a demon and being destined for Hell, so this is quite tame by comparison.

So @thehorsehasnowbolted are you saying that if we went back to 1990 - 2000ish all would be well, and is that your final offer?

Does this mock Christianity?

Memorial Service
From PREJUDICES: THIRD SERIES, 1922, pp. 232–37.
First printed in the Smart Set, March, 1922, pp. 41–42

by H. L. Mencken

Where is the grave-yard of dead gods? What lingering mourner waters their mounds? There was a day when Jupiter was the king of the gods, and any man who doubted his puissance was ipso facto a barbarian and an ignoramus. But where in all the world is there a man who worships Jupiter to-day? And what of Huitzilopochtli? In one year–and it is no more than five hundred years ago–50,000 youths and maidens were slain in sacrifice to him. Today, if he is remembered at all, it is only by some vagrant savage in the depths of the Mexican forest. Huitzilopochtli, like many other gods, had no human father; his mother was a virtuous widow; he was born of an apparently innocent flirtation that she carried on with the sun. When he frowned, his father, the sun, stood still. When he roared with rage, earthquakes engulfed whole cities. When he thirsted he was watered with 10,000 gallons of human blood. But today [in 1921] Huitzilopochtli is as magnificently forgotten as Allen G. Thurman. Once the peer of Allah, Buddha, and Wotan, he is now the peer of General Coxey, Richmond P. Hobson, Nan Petterson, Alton B. Parker, Adelina Patti, General Weyler, and Tom Sharkey.

Speaking of Huitzilopochtli recalls his brother, Tezcatilpoca. Tezcatilpoca was almost as powerful: He consumed 25,000 virgins a year. Lead me to his tomb: I would weep, and hang a couronne des perles. But who knows where it is? Or where the grave of Quitzalcontl is? Or Tialoc? Or Chalchihuitlicue? Or Xiehtecutli? Or Centeotl, that sweet one? Or Tlazolteotl, the goddess of love? Or Mictlan? Or Ixtlilton? Or Omacatl? Or Yacatecutli? Or Mixcoatl? Or Xipe? Or all the host of Tzitzimitles? Where are their bones? Where is the willow on which they hung their harps? In what forlorn and unheard of hell do they await the resurrection morn? Who enjoys their residuary estates? Or that of Dis, whom Caesar found to be the chief god of the Celts? Or that of Tarves, the bull? Or that of Moccos, the pig? Or that of Epona, the mare? Or that of Mullo, the celestial jack-ass? There was a time when the Irish revered all these gods as violently as they now hate the English. But today even the drunkest Irishman laughs at them.

But they have company in oblivion: The hell of dead gods is as crowded as the Presbyterian hell for babies. Damona is there, and Esus, and Drunemeton, and Silvana, and Dervones, and Adsalluta, and Deva, and Belisama, and Axona, and Vintios, and Taranuous, and Sulis, and Cocidius, and Adsmerius, and Dumiatis, and Caletos, and Moccus, and Ollovidius, and Albiorix, and Leucitius, and Vitucadrus, and Ogmios, and Uxellimus, and Borvo, and Grannos, and Mogons. All mighty gods in their day, worshiped by millions, full of demands and impositions, able to bind and loose–all gods of the first class, not dilettanti. Men labored for generations to build vast temples to them–temples with stones as large as hay-wagons. The business of interpreting their whims occupied thousands of priests, wizards, archdeacons, evangelists, haruspices, bishops, archbishops. To doubt them was to die, usually at the stake. Armies took to the field to defend them against infidels: Villages were burned, women and children were butchered, cattle were driven off. Yet in the end they all withered and died, and today there is none so poor to do them reverence. Worse, the very tombs in which they lie are lost, and so even a respectful stranger is debarred from paying them the slightest and politest homage.

What has become of Sutekh, once the high god of the whole Nile Valley? What has become of:
Resheph
Anath
Ashtoreth
El
Nergal
Nebo
Ninib
Melek Ahijah
Isis
Ptah
Anubis
Baal
Astarte
Hadad
Addu Shalem
Dagon
Sharrab
Yau
Amon-Re
Osiris
Sebek
Molech?

All these were once gods of the highest eminence. Many of them are mentioned with fear and trembling in the Old Testament. They ranked, five or six thousand years ago, with Jahveh himself; the worst of them stood far higher than Thor. Yet they have all gone down the chute, and with them the following:
Bilé
Ler
Arianrod
Morrigu
Govannon
Gunfled
Sokk-mimi
Memetona
Dagda
Robigus
Pluto
Ops
Meditrina
Vesta
Tilmun
Ogyrvan
Dea Dia
Ceros
Vaticanus
Edulia
Adeona
Iuno Lucina
Saturn
Furrina
Vediovis
Consus
Cronos
Enki
Engurra
Belus
Dimmer
Mu-ul-lil
Ubargisi
Ubilulu
Gasan lil
U-dimmer-an-kia
Enurestu
U-sab-sib Kerridwen
Pwyll
Tammuz
Venus
Bau
Mulu-hursang
Anu
Beltis
Nusku
U-Mersi
Beltu
Dumu-zi-abzu
Kuski-banda
Sin
Abil Addu
Apsu
Dagan
Elali
Isum
Mami
Nin-man
Zaraqu
Suqamunu
Zagaga
Gwydion
Manawyddan
Nuada Argetlam
Tagd
Goibniu
Odin
Llaw Gyffes
Lleu
Ogma
Mider
Rigantona
Marzin
Mars
Kaawanu Ni-zu
Sahi
Aa
Allatu
Jupiter
Cunina
Potina
Statilinus
Diana of Ephesus
Nin-azu
Lugal-Amarada
Zer-panitu
Merodach
U-ki
Dauke
Gasan-abzu
Elum
U-Tin-dir-ki
Marduk
Nin-lil-la
Nin
Persephone
Istar
Lagas
U-urugal
Sirtumu
Ea
Nirig
Nebo
Samas
Ma-banba-anna
En-Mersi
Amurru
Assur
Aku
Qarradu
Ura-gala
Ueras

You may think I spoof. That I invent the names. I do not. Ask the rector to lend you any good treatise on comparative religion: You will find them all listed. They were gods of the highest standing and dignity–gods of civilized peoples–worshiped and believed in by millions. All were theoretically omnipotent, omniscient, and immortal. And all are dead.

Actually some evidence exists for a man called Jesus/Yeshua - let’s call his Josh that appears to be one of many teachers in that area at that time. No evidence exists as to whether he was Christ(the anointed one), well any more than any other human.

“Billions of people communicate each day with God, observe or await His responses, and act based on His commands. On this basis God is, objectively speaking, more of a real entity in the world than any individual human being posting in this thread.” So all Gods and Goddesses that have ever existed have had more followers than me. Are they all real?

I’ve met intelligent Christians and intelligent atheists really intelligent agnostics and unbelievably intelligent occultists and genius Satanist’s and everything in between. The difference lies between those who seek and those armament they have found all the answers - nothing to do with the underlying belief, everything to do with the questions they ask of it.

Yeah, but our one is the real deal so 😝🖕

Indeed, yes.

Generally, though, I like to offer this to those (and there are many such) who like to pose with, "Surely we can teach our children about different religions, and then they can make their own minds up when they are adults."

Religious education in England currently (I have grandchildren) is so parochial. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, sometimes a bit of Sikhism, spiced with occasional agnosticism/humanism, very little else. Why?

All you RE teachers: when are you going to have a serious look at Zoroastrianism with your pupils? Or any of Mencken's dead deities?

Or, perhaps, a favourite of my own youth, Rastafari?

What about it, all you religious apologists? Why such thin gruel?

Abrahamic faiths have demonised (literally) some of these. Esp those related to Mesopotamia/Sumeria (they liked the stories not the gods/goddesses)

many of these are still worshipped or interacted with in certain quarters. So I wouldn’t say dead these have been more sidelined by Christianity.

But yes I agree with the sentiment - many of these gods were worshipped for far longer than the Christian god. What was the Christian god doing between creation of the universe around 14 billion years ago and around 3000 years ago (if you believe the god of the old and New Testaments are the same).

I'm Agnostic myself and would never "mock" a religion or belief (including aetheism).

I may at times think that some religions and beliefs have negative effects, whilst also thinking that the same religions and beliefs also have some positive aspects.

I find the most negative thing about singular belief structures is that each believes that they have the only answer - and this often extrapolates well beyond the arguments interminably posted on MN.

sewexe

You left out vulva and smegma.

(Sorry, couldn't resist )

There is evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ and the events associated with Him, that is multiple witness testimonies and corroborating statements. Whether you believe that evidence is a matter for yourselves, but you may in that case have to question a number of other things you believe to be true because they were proven on the same basis. Again, however, it is a conversation for you to have with someone whose position is not one of faith.

Whilst many historians believe Jesus existed , evidence wise there is next to no evidence, and there is no witness statements from the his lifetime, all writings about him are from about hundred years after his death by greek or Romans.

I'm not saying he didn't exist but evidence wise it's a no.

Considering that witness statements have been shown to be incredibly unreliable, I'm not all that impressed with thousand year old ones.

I thought Jewish records had an account of Jesus?

@Notwavingbutsignalling I think Jesus as a historical figure of the time is pretty well established. It's the miracles that aren't, and can't be.