Gee, John, I'm not furiously angry. I think maybe I'm a little intense, and after following the God thread since its inception and watching it change into a Bible-quoting forum for Christians only, not like it was in the beginning when it was fun and Jerry Garcia was hanging out, I did get upset. Watching people dispute endlessly small semantics matters while the planet is being destroyed, while 30,000 children in the undeveloped world die of diarrhea every day, while people kill each other in horrible wars over religion and resentments over the not very level playing field of life that we all get dumped on, is not my thing, and I've been getting many e-mails from other very nice people who were upset by the turn this thread had taken, people who love each other, and animals, and the planet, and feel that whether one is a Christian is totally irrelevant to core values and individual worth and love of life, and felt their postings were not even heard. It is not necessary to be a Christian to be a wonderful, compassionate, person, and most of the world is not Christian, so why is thread dominated by a very specific interpretation of that religion? And this isn't Shalom's thread--who made him sheriff here, to judge people?
I actually like it a little better now, because the last few threads or so, people are actually not just quoting the Bible, a document that from my own studies I believe was written over a period of several hundred years after Christ's death, and expresses the political motivations of the men who wrote it, but that is a long subject I won't get into now. Rent "The Last Temptation of Christ" and we can talk. Now people are starting to actually talk to, and not at, each other, here, and I think that is positive.
I may not be a Christian, but I am very well read, and entitled to my own opinions, including my worship of goddesses. I get really turned off when I'm told what "He" could do for me, because I think it's presumptive and my life is totally complete without that. And I really resent the assertion that a woman who is simply in touch with
life on this mortal coil, the sensual pleasures of sex, watching a child grow, nurturing a garden, loving the feel of earth, wind and sky and hoping these things continue, is a witch!!! From my own studies of this subject, I believe witchcraft started because the inherent power of women--their knowledge of folk healing, which herbs and berries to pick in the forest, the ability to give life--terrified men. You may disagree, that's okay, but most witches are just trying to stay in touch with the power of femininity. Satanism is a totally different subject, and I would posit that most satanists are male--women love life too much to be involved in that.
But I think if we are going to have this thread, and take it seriously, everyone should be allowed to participate, and if I want to post beautiful poetry which brings some of us in touch with the power of life, which is what we're really discussing here, it should also be a forum for that, not just a discussion of Christianity.
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