christian

If You Love Peace and Hate Terrorists, Type Amen Below

/ DiggsMcGee / Leave a comment

I am Christian. Specifically Catholic.

And, yes, Catholics are Christians.

No, seriously, we are.

Being a good Christian I go to church on Sunday, read the Bible every day, compare my actions and thoughts as well as other’s opinions to what the Bible teaches, listen to Christian themed music, try to watch wholesome TV, movies, and YouTube, and subscribe to or follow Christian quote,  meme, and worship accounts on Facebook, Instagram, WordPress, Tumblr, and Pinterest.

What else is there to do?

😉

Seriously, though, there’s so much more I could do. For example, instead of pretending like I lead a Christian life, I could actually, you know, go out and be Christian. 

But that’s hard.

Why can’t I just like and share all those social media posts. That’s spreading the word, right?

And as for proclaiming the name of Jesus, I type “Amen” on Facebook posts.

That’s good, right?

I mean, think about this:  if you’re scrolling through Facebook and see one of those posts – “If you love Jesus, type amen below.” – and you can’t take 1 minute out of your busy day of wasting time on Facebook to type “amen”, then do you think you’ll take a few minutes to explain to someone why you’re a Christian? You can’t give God 1 minute, but you expect him to give you eternity in paradise?

Probably not.

But I know what you’re thinking…

(Actually I don’t.)

“Typing ‘amen’ on a Facebook post because they say ‘if you love Jesus type amen’ isn’t preaching or proclaiming. It’s an ad tactic meant to coerce you into making the decision they want you to make by providing you with the choice between their decision and a totally and obviously deplorable decision which a decent human being would never make.”

(Do I get brownie points if you were actually thinking that?)

My rebuttle:

😝

Now that I acted like a 10-year-old to make you think you have the intellectual upper hand, let me do some splain’in. 

First off, I hate those posts. They are a marketing tactic meant to trick you. You can type “amen” or you can pass by the post, which means you worship evil incarnate.

Your choice.

It’s just like normal ads that claim you’re a bad mother if you don’t use a certain diaper, or you’re a horrible human being if you don’t give 15 cents a day to starving children, or you’re a worthless sack of crap and a waste of human genetic material because you won’t adopt that three-legged puppy.

(Darn you Sarah McLaughlin! Making me feel the feels. How rude!)

Some of these posts say things like “Jesus loves everyone. Type amen if you agree”.

That seems good. Jesus does love everyone (despite what some fanatical weirdos might claim). So I guess I’ll type Amen… because I agree… but if I don’t type amen does that mean I don’t agree? They don’t specify.

There are some posts that posit a conundrum: “Jesus is Lord. Like if you love Jesus. Ignore if you love the devil.”

O.o

That one is a little more damning, perhaps. It seems as if you must like that picture, because if you don’t, that means you love the devil. But does it?

I’m going to speak only to Christians since 1.) these posts are Christian in nature, and 2.) I don’t feel like debating multiple religions or lack thereof right now. But you may feel free to extrapolate my thoughts to your religion or beliefs and the posts you see on social media.

Does ignoring these types of posts mean you love the devil, or want Satan to win, or hate God, or whatever the alternative is? For that matter, though, does liking (or sharing, or commenting, or tagging, etc.) mean that you love God, love Jesus, want peace, believe in the resurrection, that you are saved, or even that you’re a good person? Can interacting with a Facebook post prove anything about the state of your soul?

Can it?

CAN IT!?

Let’s break it down (wikka wikka screetch!).

Here’s the problem. You have two choices: be a good person or be a bad person. If you type “amen” or like or share you are a good person. If you ignore you’re a bad person. You could call out the post as the marketing trick it is, and that’d be good. However, by not promoting the post you are failing to promote God. You are, in a sense, denying God. That is also bad. So, not falling for the trick is good. But falling for the trick results in something good. But falling for the trick is bad. But not reacting is also bad. So if you react, that’s good, except it’s bad that you gave in, but good you acknowledged God, but bad you did it just so you don’t look stupid, but good you did it because you know you should, but bad you did it to please people instead of God, but good if you genuinely saw it as an opportunity to spread the word of God, but bad if you rely on others to remind you to talk about God.

*takes breath*

Basically, the reason you’re reacting to the post will tell you whether or not you did it for the right reason.

If you see the post as an opportunity to spread the word of God and decide to put a positive spin on the appearance of God on a social media platform, then you’re probably reacting for the right reason. After all, almost everything can be spun in either a positive or negative manner. 

However, I do think these people should stop. Seriously, if you posted something to the effect of “like if you’re a good person and ignore if you’re a crap sack” what do you expect people to do. They don’t want to take the chance that someone will find out they didn’t like the picture. Make that “someone” God Himself, and you can’t escape him. He just saw you scroll past the post. Go back and like it right now or you don’t love Him!

J/K

As far as I’m concerned, these people are taking advantage of the correctly working conscience of everyday people and tricking them into liking and sharing their post. This then serves to spread awareness of their own page or account. They get more followers, and in turn get more views, shares, likes, and even more followers. It’s just self promotion.

Sure, they’re spreading word (or pictures) of God. So that’s good. But you’re not supposed to test the faith of other people. You’re not supposed to trick people.

I can look past this, until you post one of these:

“God will answer all your prayers. Type Amen if you believe.”

This one looks fine at first. Even I believe that God will answer my prayers. But this comes with an asterisk. (That’s this thing * ) God will answer any prayer, as long as His words live in you and your life is lived for Him. If what you are praying for goes against God’s word (like, say, praying that someone crashes their flashy, expensive new car because they’ve been a jerk about having all this money to throw around and you can barely afford Ramen noodles… jerk… where was I?)

A prayer like that is a jealous prayer. That’s not a God-like thing to pray for. So… God probably won’t answer that prayer with anything more than an opportunity to be more thankful and grateful for the things you already have. That’s kind of how that works.

But then, someone doesn’t type “amen.” Are they bad? Do they not believe? Are they a fan of Star Wars?

Ya, see, we can’t tell and it’s none of our business. Plus, as one of the posts I actually will share points out, God is not a genie. Quit forwarding silly “share and God will answer all your prayers” posts. He’s not your fairy godmother. That’s not how this works.

-Diggs out

P.S. – sometimes I just write until I feel like I’m done. Sometimes I write until I feel like I should have been done a while ago and wrap it up. Sometimes I write with a clear beginning and end, creating something I’m proud of. And sometimes my brain jumps topics so quickly I end up lost and have to stop. This feels like one of those times.

Steel Against Steel, or Stone, or Paradoxen?

/ DiggsMcGee / Leave a comment

I was browsing through my Instagram feed for, like, the hundredth time today. I quickly realized I had seen everything in it about a dozen times.

“You need to follow more people,” I said to myself.

So, I clicked on the discover button to see what else is out there. Nothing great, and most not even good. That’s when I found a post from a Christian IG account about NASA proving the Bible right…

What? You missed that breaking story on CNN as well? Never fear. There was no story, because NASA didn’t prove the Bible right, because the story is a hoax.

The legitimacy of the story did not, however, deter people from praising Jesus. Nor did it deter people from calling the Jesus lovers “idiots.” I wouldn’t call it an argument because, well, it’s IG… you more or less like a picture, leave a comment maybe, and then move on to the next of millions of pictures asking for a double-tap. But there were a few (what I would call, but only because they have no other reason to be on this account commenting if they weren’t) trolls. Seriously, I don’t understand where these people come from. It’s as if they are browsing through IG and come upon a Christian picture. Then think to themselves, “let’s see how many reasons I can come up with that this picture is pure fantasy elves and fairy nonsense…”

I thought, if you don’t have anything nice to say…

wp_ss_20160615_0003Whatever. They were there, and that’s where I saw this (pictured). It really doesn’t make much sense. I felt so strongly at what I’m going to pick it apart for that I had to screenshot it. This person states they don’t “have the time nor patience to argue about this with someone who does not have an open mind to anything they disagree on.” Which sounds good at first. Until you realize that he was basically saying religion is dumb, science is fact, everyone who believes otherwise is an idiot. If I held the same principle about who I argued with he, by his own definition, would be someone I would avoid.

I think these people misuse the word “argue.” To argue is really just making statements that either support your side or undermine the other side. You can say whatever you want. To debate is to prove that your side is the right side. You do this with facts. If the other guy’s facts are better, more compelling, or more believable, then there’s a good chance that he is right. In that case, you would be a fool for not joining him. In a debate, you can concede defeat. You keep an open mind because, after all, you very well could be wrong.

In essence what I’m saying is this:  if you won’t argue with someone because they won’t keep an open mind you need to make sure you yourself are keeping an open mind. Or else, you are actually calling yourself a hypocrite.

Part II

wp_ss_20160615_0004Back to the discovery of IG… many of the other posts on this account were very good, uplifting, and contemplative. I really liked this one (pictured).

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” – Proverbs 27:17

But…  I don’t know that much about biblical times… but did they actually sharpen swords with… other swords? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen grinding wheels in historical films before. And I’m pretty sure the Japanese never sharpened their katana with other katana. You don’t sharpen blades with other blades, you use a sharpening stone-

REVELATION!

(At least that’s how it sounded in my head… if you can picture the sound the word “REVELATION!” makes… is it “picture” a sound? Hear the sound? Imagine- it’s “imagine the sound.” I knew I’d get there.)

I read this passage and then quickly had a brief epiphany. You may not actually sharpen blades with other blades, or solid blocks of iron, or what ever this passage actually means. But if it rather said, “…stone sharpens iron…” then I actually know what that means, now at least.

Think of stone. It’s hard. It’s unmoving. It just sits there weathering away. If you call someone hardheaded you could say they were like stone. They will sit there and continue to be hardheaded, repeating the same thing over and over again. If unchanging, they will eventually weather away.

And as for you? It’s only by coming into contact with (and no I do not mean beating the daylights out of) this hardheaded person that you will get sharper. As long as you remember that you’re a blade, and not a hammer.

So like with our guy above, by talking with him and sharing information you have about Jesus, God, and the Bible you can sharpen your knowledge, wisdom, and wits. You can listen to him and hear what he has to say. Then say a little prayer for guidance, and tell him what the Holy Spirit says he needs to hear. Just don’t forget: you’re a blade, not a hammer. If you start bludgeoning the guy you will only make yourself duller. You cannot defeat the stone, and more to the point, you don’t want to defeat him. You want to give him the information he needs to make a more informative decision. If he chooses to continue believing you are an arrogant idiot, trapped in the past by a dusty old book, then that’s his choice. But beating him over the head with that dust book will only push him farther away from God even faster.

And yes. I am not blind.

If I am not careful this could all apply to me. I could become a stone; unmoving and unchanging, suffering from the weathering of ignorance and foolishness. I could just as easily be that IG poster from above. I could decide not to talk to you because you have made up your mind and will not listen to a word I say. I could decide that I am right and everyone who doesn’t believe what I believe is a fool.

On the other hand…

I could be the sharpening stone that gradually sharpens the blade that is the people who need a little help fighting the good fight. I, little old rock, could actually wear away the dings and dullness of the blade making it better able to face the world.

Or the original passage could be easily explained as well: stick with people, and they will help you grow.

Or time could freeze and the world as we know it could be locked in a 7th dimension paradox!

And that’s what it’s like talking to me.

But seriously, don’t get so hardheaded that you think you should only talk to people who’s mind you can change. And quit arguing with everybody anyway!

-Diggs out

“Evil preys on the weak… because it fears the strong.”

P.S. – it’s paradoxes. I know how to work a dictionary.

😉

Your Salvation – Who do you think you are?

/ DiggsMcGee / Leave a comment

I’m sorry. But I just had to say this.

I am Catholic. Like me or hate me, I don’t care. The reason it matters is because of something I saw today. I was looking through Facebook and found that a page I follow (about Jesus and Christianity) is looking for volunteers. The ministry who runs the Facebook page had a small questionnaire on their page. It’s sort of like their application for the position. The part which irked me was a question asking if the applicant believes in “salvation by faith in Jesus Christ alone.” Now for those of you who don’t know, salvation would be the phenomena where God allows you entrance into Heaven and thus, saves you from eternal damnation.

Now, this is specifically where it gets important that I am Catholic.

Most Christian religions tend to teach that when you proclaim you believe Jesus died for your sins and then get baptized, you are instantly and for always “saved.” Catholics (the original Christian religion..) on the other hand seem to have a bad reputation for teaching people to do good works. Why the bad reputation for teaching people to do good? Because the other Christian religions claim we are saying you must do good works to get into Heaven; as if doing lots of good without proclaiming Jesus as your saviour would get you into Heaven. However, that’s not the case. No Catholic believes he can get into Heaven on his own merit. The good I do comes from God. I am merely an instrument of His peace (as St. Francis was). I still believe that you have to proclaim that Jesus is your Lord and Savior. Afterall, no man goes to the Father on their own; rather, only through Jesus can one get to the Father in Heaven.

That said, many of the quotes the Protestant religions use to bolster their argument come from people like Paul (who was once Saul). Sure, many of them come from Peter and other disciples, and many even come from Jesus himself. Even still, there are many more Bible verses where Jesus himself is telling us how to act. Why would Jesus bother telling us how to act if how we act (or, should I say, the works we do) had no weight on the question of “are you going to Heaven?”

And that’s only half my point.

The other reason I don’t like the Protestant mindset on salvation begins with the story of a young boy. Once upon a pool in a small American town, there was a young boy. This boy told one of the lifeguards that he did not make it to church (or he said he wasn’t going that day… I don’t remember). The lifeguard, joking around of course, remarks, “oooh. You’re going to Hell.” Now, this may not have been a very nice thing to say, even in a joking manner, but we can’t change the past. This kid, without missing a beat, replies, “no I’m not. I’ve been saved.” Now, In order for this story to make sense you have to know this boy. While he wasn’t exactly a “bad” kid, he was a troublemaker. I became upset because this troublemaker seemed to think that it didn’t matter what he did (even if he chose having fun over spending time with the Lord who saved him), he was already saved and didn’t need to worry about it.

The point? He, like many other Non-Catholics, seemed to think that he had been saved and that’s that. To be saved means you have been provided with salvation. That means you are most likely going to Heaven. While I believe this is within God’s power (since He made the rules), even when I feel as if I’m not measuring up, this kid believed he was going to Heaven already. So, essentially, he made up God’s mind for Him. I’m sure God wants this kid in Heaven with Him, but I’m not sure if God allows us to decide if we are going to Heaven. (as I said, He made the rules) God allows us the choice to follow the rules or throw them to the wind. By choosing not to follow the rules, you might be condemning yourself. But by choosing to follow the rules you still don’t secure your place in Heaven; that still doesn’t mean you’re saved.

Only God can decide who goes to Heaven and who doesn’t. It is through Jesus that we get to Heaven, not our own actions. Baptism is an action we take. Being human we are capable of making decisions and promises and then going back on them. It is ultimately up to God as to how well we followed the rules. The sacrifice Jesus made opened up salvation to all who accept it. This sacrifice, however, does not secure our place in Heaven. You won’t know if you’re getting in until you’re at the front door. This is why you need to live a good life, doing good works, following all the rules Jesus laid out for us, and believe Jesus died to save you.

Who do you think you are? You’re not God. You don’t get to make His decisions for Him.