This WSJ piece describing the atheist and agnostic Marine Corps guards of a Navy chaplain is not a sympathetic portrayal of the chaplain, who sounds like a moron:
“Hey, sir, don’t get out of the vehicle until I lay down a sniper screen,” Gunnery Sgt. Mark Shawhan, an agnostic with a suspicion of organized religion, instructed Chaplain Moran before the patrol. “That’s where he’s been getting us, and when you cross the bridge—RUN.”
Lt. Moran wasn’t troubled. “I believe the Lord is going to protect us,” he said. But he wondered aloud whether to finish his Meal, Ready-to-Eat packaged lunch before heading to the armored vehicle.
Gunny Shawhan shook his head in disbelief.
When their turn came, the chaplain and his assistant bolted across the bridge and pivoted into a cornfield, where the minister stood upright. RP2 Chute shouted at Lt. Moran to get down. “Take a knee,” he yelled.
And this:
The chaplain was struck both by RP2 Chute’s command of the Book of Revelation, and his refusal to take it seriously. “He’s familiar with the Christian doctrine, but he chooses not to believe it,” says the chaplain, a slender-faced, soft-spoken man with a fringe of gray in his black hair. “That’s what I find puzzling.”
On a visit to Kilo Co., a Marine asked for a biblical ruling on tattoos. Lt. Moran said the Book of Leviticus bans them. RP2 Chute disagreed. Leviticus, he said, says people shouldn’t get tattoos to mourn the dead.
The article reminds me of a great scene from the HBO miniseries Generation Kill:
IndieTarheel
LT Moran.
__
Once again proving the best humor is unintentional.
rob!
Where’s Father Mulcahy when you need him?
Odie Hugh Manatee
Maybe that’s why they weren’t given body armor when they first shipped out. Bush was all into that faith-based crap, maybe the chaplains were told to tell the guys that Jeebus would keep them safe. Whatever happened to that line “God helps those who help themselves”? Don’t want to get shot? Then don’t put yourself in a situation where you are an easy target!
What a dumb fucker.
M31
What I find puzzling is being familiar with Christian doctrine and choosing to believe it. Seriously. Good thing for church attendance numbers most Christians don’t.
Alwhite
The guy probably wears the armor of Gawd, described in Ephesians 6:13
They should have sent him out front so he could be the sheild for the useful members of the patrol.
Moran – heh indeedy
scav
umm yeah, constantly insisting your diety prove himself by protecting your sorry ass is apparently the height of faith and devotion. “Hey, you up there! Bounce bullets away from me as I maximize my surface area in a live fire zone!” “Hey, you up there! I’ve got 25 bucks riding on the game so make sure it pays off!” That’s not a vision of vision of god you got going there bucko, that’s a vision of a personally dedicated celestial vending machine.
donquijoterocket
From personal experience in another military misadventure I’ve never quite believed that no atheists in foxholes BS. What caring deity would cause a human to be put in such an inhuman place? Fortunately there wasn’t a lot of this christian indoctrination crap in my Army. Staying alive and in one piece to get on the freedom bird back to the world was the consuming concern.I’ve got to think this is a divisive element and probably not good for overall morale.
arguingwithsignposts
I am reminded of Life of Brian. Show us a miracle!
slag
@rob!: I couldn’t stop thinking it was Frank Burns.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
As a person of faith, let me say “I believe the Lord is going to protect us” is such a slap in the face of God. God did protect you already — He gave you a brain. If you choose to act as if your decisions make no difference, you’re refusing His help.
Also, too:
This is why all the cool atheist kids often don’t like us people of faith. Because of the frequency with which we sound like patronizing assholes.
Xenos
Chaplains still have assistants? I thought that was a joke by Vonnegut.
Vince CA
One of my best friends is religious, but I don’t have any African American friends. OK, seriously, it’s just asking too much of the Marine Corps to put their faith in some other power when what I hope we’ve done is instruct them in the power of their own wits and weapons. This is no Saint Francis walking among the lepers, these are land mines and snipers.
Woodrowfan
Actually that’s not in the Bible, I think it was Ben Franklin. But you make a good point. The Bible does say that you shouldn’t put God to the test….
Amanda in the South Bay
The problem is the large number of fundygelical Protestant chaplains in the Army, who alas rate missionary work among the troops as a high priority. Plus a lot of them go to bumfuck bible colleges and seminaries, and I think it shows in their…confused and rather stupid comments, it seems.
JGabriel
Hooray!
Oh. Oops. Never mind.
.
Woodrowfan
Actually, many Christians don’t believe Revelation is a view of the future either, but a story about the Church’s persecution under Nero.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Xenos:
Its an enlisted MOS in the Army, can’t remember the number off the top of my head. Basically a glorified admin assistant for chaplains, plus they are supposed to protect them in combat zones.
Linda Featheringill
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Amen.
abscam
@Woodrowfan: My suggestion would be to take this asshole at his word and free up the poor shmuck who has to cover his sorry ass. ETA: Sorry, meant this for the thread in general, not just Woodrowfan.
arguingwithsignposts
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Yes, the “man stranded on his rooftop in a flood” lesson.
SiubhanDuinne
@scav #6:
*a personally dedicated celestial vending machine.*
It’s early yet, but I don’t think anyone else needs to compete for the intertubes today.
Linda Featheringill
@Woodrowfan:
Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
Luke 4:12 and Deuteronomy 6:16.
[Of course I would not give up my religion without studying it first.]
Amanda in the South Bay
My favourite chaplain moment in the Army was when I came out as trans, and after spending the weekend in the hospital for suicidal ideation having the obligatory talk with the BN chaplain, he tried to impress on the need for me to follow Jesus, put my faith in Dog, blah blah blah. I actually rolled my eyes at him-I suspect he knew he wasn’t going to get his message across, but had to do it anyways. Plus I got to tell him to politely bugger off when he straight out asked me if I was gay.
ADM
Seems vanity’s a little difficult to distinguish from faith.
wasabi gasp
Is there a doctrine in the house?
Omnes Omnibus
@Linda Featheringill: @Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
On a somewhat related note, there is a scene in the movie Chariots of Fire, where Eric Liddell, a world class runner and a missionary, is lectured by his sister about taking part in races when he has the higher purpose of preaching. Liddell answers with this: I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.
Also, the Shakers believed that everything that they did was observed by God and should, therefore, be done as well as possible as an act of worship and to avoid offending God by wasting the talents and abilities they had been given.
scav
There’d be a hell of a lot more atheists in foxholes if they’re the only ones issued armor and weapons because his dietyness has the other ones covered.
doctorpsycho1960
This is really sad, because being a chaplain is one of the most thankless jobs in a thankless trade, but a competent chaplain can make a big difference to a unit.
Amanda in the South Bay
Sorry for all the posts, but this thread has me all riled up…
One of the (many) problems with fundygelical Protestant chaplains is that they are totally clueless with dealing with soldiers who are atheists, agnostics, Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim, etc. Basically anyone who isn’t a fundygelical Protestant. I think part of that is lack of exposure to the wider world (i.e. when people come from small towns and go to hick bible colleges), and also part of the worldview of that type of Christianity, which is almost dualistic in its scope-you haved the saved and righteous on one side, and everyone else, who is either damned or needs to be converted.
bemused
Idiots like Moran put others trying to keep his sorry ass safe in danger. Shouldn’t a Christian, despite his belief God will protect him, be just little concerned about that? It’s not all about God, it’s all about him.
cleter
Well, the Marine is right about Leviticus, and the chaplain is wrong. It prohibits a particular kind of tattoos as part of mortuary rituals in Egypt. The prohibition isn’t about the tattoos, per se, it’s about idolatry, and being too cozy with foreign religious practices.
I would be curious to know the chaplain’s opinion as to why we have to obey that particular bit of Leviticus, though, and not the prohibitions on shrimp and bacon, and whatnot.
JGabriel
cleter:
Actually:
Adventists keep kosher. So that question really wouldn’t pose a dilemma for him.
.
RedKitten
Sigh…he’s definitely not alone in that one. If I had a nickel for every well-meaning Christian who thinks that the only reason I’m atheist is because I don’t KNOW about The Word(c)…well, I’d have enough nickels to put in a sock, and could then swat these people upside the head with it.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
@Woodrowfan:
Aesop, though it wouldn’t surprise me if Franklin copped it at some point.
Hard to say what my favorite part of that story was, though the bit about the chaplain leading the men in a verse of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and then trailing off into the la-la-laa’s was epic. I wonder though–if that chaplain is killed, is the reason because God wanted him to come home, or because God stopped looking out for him?
Walker
@cleter:
Acts. Peter has a vision where he has to eat bugs. He refuses because they are unclean; God chastises him, telling him that none of his creations are unclean. This is what hit the dietary reset switch.
They section goes on and basically says that they only Old Testament laws that need to be preserved are those regarding “sexual morality”, though it does not spell out exactly what that means.
RedKitten
I did not know that, but it’s a nice concept.
That’s the frustrating thing — there are some people who are very religious and it really DOES make them better people. They’re happier and more fulfilled, more generous, more charitable, more gracious, and they are an asset to any community in which they dwell.
And they’re completely overshadowed by the arseholes who are more interested in judging and proselytizing than in actually living a godly life.
Zipperupus
My Battalion Chaplain was a vain and supercilious idiot. He talked exclusively about two things: Jesus and exercise. His favorite part of the day was walking up the steps of the Haditha Dam to chow. He’d skip steps so that he lunged, and he would admonish everyone within hearing to do the same.
“Go up these stairs like me. Squeeze your butt together to get the most out of it.” I tried to avoid him, but since he had no real work, that was difficult. He would always be early to chow, and if I waited a few minutes, I would end up late in line or not getting chow at all because unlike his sorry ass, I had a real job that involved convoys and patrols.
Once, I was lucky enough to enjoy his company when our unit got involved as a quick reaction force to a local food riot. My mission, as a pay agent, was to protect my Pelican case full of money. His mission was to flap his gums like some third-rate Howard Cosell. He ate his food, and watched the action, openly hoping for the opportunity to “do his job.” The idea of wishing for a casualty to bless just infuriated me, and if it wasn’t for his RP I would have ended up Court Martialed.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
@RedKitten:
Does the religion make them better people, or does it give them some sort of external feedback that helps them rationalize their decision to act the way they would have regardless? I guess I’m suggesting that most people seek justification for their actions in religion, rather than the religion having an effect on their lives.
Mnemosyne
@Walker:
It’s not just once, though, it’s three times (of course). And Peter realizes (after he gets socked in the head by God for the third time) that God’s not talking about food:
jake the snake
@M31:
“
You beat me to it.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@scav:
Brilliant. I’m using that.
Chad N Freude
@Amanda in the South Bay:
The Air Force, in particular, is riddled with overt evangelizers.
Check Wikipedia on Michael L. Weinstein and visit his website.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Um. Yeah. Because it’s the looniest thing in a book that includes guys wrestling angels, guys being eaten by whales, women turning into pillars of salt and girls having sex with their dad to keep the family line going.
Really, read it sometime. It is so fucking nuts the only thing you can get from it it is what you put in there yourself. Which is why the TalEvan loves it so much.
Mnemosyne
@Brian S (formerly Incertus):
I may not be understanding what you’re saying, but I don’t think that most genuinely devout people try to justify, say, their deep desire to work in a soup kitchen after the fact by saying Jesus urged them to do it. Actual Christians look at all of the stuff in the Bible about taking care of the poor, think, “Hmm, how can I do that?” and go out and find something that they think will fulfill that requirement.
The problem, of course, is that there are very, very few genuinely devout people of any religion, so most people end up using their religion to excuse the selfish things they want to do anyway instead of the other way around. And those assholes give a bad name to the people who are inspired to do good by their religion because they vastly outnumber the do-gooders.
G and I just met up with a friend of his from high school that he hadn’t seen in 21 years. His friend was raised evangelical (he even flunked out of Moody Bible College for not going to class). In large part because of that upbringing, he works for a nonprofit that teaches modern farming techniques in Africa and (more importantly) teaches the farmers to teach those techniques to other farmers. He and his wife (who he met through friends at church) feel this work is important enough that they’ve made some sacrifices in their own lifestyle so he can do it.
Those, my friend, are genuinely religious people, and they stand out when you spot them because they are so very few and far between when you look at the vast majority of “Christians” in this country.
Mike in NC
I used to encounter a lot of older sailors who could barely conceal their contempt for people in some of the newer “touchy-feely” Navy ratings, especially Career Counselor and Religious Program Specialist. Those guys spent most of their time sitting in air-conditioned offices and never got their hands dirty.
JD Rhoades
@arguingwithsignposts:
Moran, standing before the Throne: “Lord, why am I dead? you were supposed to protect me, your servant!”
God: “Protect you? You asshole, I sent you TWO MARINES! And you didn’t listen to them? Get out of my sight, you idiot.”
Chad N Freude
Wait! His name is MORAN?
Kirk Spencer
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
There seems to be a segment of Christianity that thinks everything will be so much better if we’d just regurgitate the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@Chad N Freude: I know, right? And he truly lives up to that name.
Chad N Freude
Gee, and all this time I thought it was Darwin.
I don’t intend to denigrate your faith, I just can’t resist an opportunity for cheap-shot snark.
quaint irene
I prefer the Book of Revelations from the Jeeves’ stories. There, it’s a catalog kept at the Junior Ganymede Club, a private club for butlers. in it, they keep a record of their various master’s foibles and mis-doings. Bertie Wooster is responsible for a lot of it’s pages.
Jamie
@RedKitten:
Yeah. I’m a big city elitist type now, but when I visit the hick town I went to high school in I still get the kill-or-convert bullshit. It used to be fun to engage them and demonstrate that I knew more of the bible than they did, but that game doesn’t really have much staying power. Now I just tend to be an asshole right back. Seems to be the only way to shut them up that doesn’t involve a brick.
In other news, I get the evangelical imperative; I really do. But is it too much to ask that evangelical types take their Most Important Serious Duty seriously, and be a bit professional about it? The vast bulk of them that I run into are just intrusive assholes, which is why I think the whole game, for most of them, is self-signalling, not actually converting heathens. Goading me in to telling them where they can put their cross by constant badgering about my eternal soul feeds both the “I’m being oppressed for my faith” and the “I must be doing something right if it gets to them” buttons.
Note: pricks at the DMV counter and entitled stroller-pushers on the sidewalk who push babies two abrest and move at .5m/h make me swear, too. This is neither an indication that they’re being oppressed nor that they’re doing something right.
rachel
@quaint irene: But I believe Jeeves saw the wisdom of removing those pages after the book was stolen to be used as blackmail fodder.
Cheryl from Maryland
@JD Rhoades: Exactly.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
@Mnemosyne: What I’m saying is that a self-sacrificing type of person is going to find ways to serve others or humanity regardless of whether he or she has a faith. The religion might act as a motivator, but it’s not going to push people who don’t have that in them to some extent. The basic desire has to come from within.
I think more often we see people using religion as an excuse to be assholes to those outside their tribe, and so that’s the example we turn to more often, but if that’s the case, then the flip side of it probably has some validity–good people are going to be good, regardless of whether or not they are people of faith.
There’s also a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy at play here. Good people who are believers are going to attend churches who preach what they value, and asshole believers are going to do the same. But in both cases, it’s the people who are defining the church, not the other way around.
fasteddie9318
What’s puzzling to me is that LT Moran is familiar with the doctrine of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, yet he chooses not to believe it. Why can’t he open his heart to His Noodly Appendage?
asiangrrlMN
This was a fascinating read. I would be furious if I were one of the Marines trying to protect Lt. Moran. As bemused upthread pointed out, he’s putting other people’s lives in danger.
@ADM: Ditto this. As it ever was.
marfrks
The chaplain’s puzzlement that someone could understand Christianity and yet not believe it is a very general thing. I see it in academics all the time. Someone loves a topic and therefore chooses to specialize in that topic and become an expert. They then confuse their expertise with their love and assume that everyone else would love the topic and agree if only they knew enough. Because the expertise is perfectly real it is rare for people in this position to be challenged in a way they can respect. The assumption–often true–that they know a lot insulates them from ever questioning their own beliefs. Of course it happens in politics, too. Someone reads Edmund Burke, starts palling around with other Burke readers, and thinks for the rest of their lives that liberals would be conservatives if they only read Burke.
The whole dynamic is pernicious to the extent that the education that people receive never asks them to be honest about the original reasons for their love. In both religion and politics, many groups take members uncritically and do not ask for that honesty. At least in the religious tradition, however, there are some groups that encourage and even require it. The problem is that those people are not the ones speaking loudly. Honesty often has the consequence of humility and humility the consequence of diffidence. A blow to public discourse, although I like to think that these people are doing more good as they are.
rob!
@slag: its amazing how prescient M*A*S*H was. If Frank Burns was real and alive today, he’d be hosting a FOX News show.
JasonF
The most mind-boggling part of the article for me had nothing to do with Lt. Moran. It was the part where they said being a military chaplain was particularly perilous because they are unarmed, and as proof, they talk about the single chaplain who has been KIA since September 11 — a man who was killed by a roadside bomb along with four other soldiers. Tragic, to be sure, but it’s got nothing to do with the chaplain not being armed. And if we’re talking about one death in nine years of active warfare, that strikes me as not particularly perilous at all (relatively speaking — obviously anybody serving in a theater of war is in a significant amount of peril).
That Other Mike
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Not to say that you’re doing it, you just reminded me of it by happenstance, but a major annoyance factor regarding evangelicals is the whole shtick of Of course Atheists don’t believe when we’re being assholes, if we were nicer they’d probably reconsider. It is annoying as all get out, because it presumes disbelief stems from simple emotionalism rather than rational thought; this is not to say that every Atheist is a paragon of reason, but it seems that the trend is for disbelief to be rationally motivated.
Basically, if evangelicals were nicer about it, we’d be more inclined to say “No, thanks, not for me,” than “Go fuck yourself”; the reaction is the same, in that it’s a no, but at least we’d probably be more polite.
gex
In my experience, I find that I am more well versed in the Bible as a (g)atheist than many of the religious folks who I may debate with. My feeling is that in those cases (and perhaps many more) what people know about the Bible is what they hear and are encouraged to think during sermons, and not what they read and think about on their own.
ET
Just came back from seeing “The Pat Tillman Story” and I got to say I am again reminded why I hate the Bush administration. Still. And Always.
But there was this “interesting” audio between I think the lead investigator and someone else basically about why the Tillman’s were so hot to find out the truth. The investigator was all like they are atheist. I guess because atheists don’t believe in God and people are just worm food after they die, that somehow the family needed an explanation (as opposed to the truth) instead of just believing in God. Didn’t make sense but all I could think of was “stupid FUCKER! die. in. a. fire.”
Ump 902a
Thank you for the link. My son is currently in Afghanistan with the Kilo Co. mentioned in the article. They are due to rotate back home at the end of October and I’m glad that he trusts in his fellow Marines rather than the ignorant God-botherer profiled here.
LanceThruster
I was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of one of the surviving officers of the USS Liberty because we both happened to be atheists. He shared with me that in order to get his top security clearance renewed in the late ’70’s, he had to lie on his application and statement about a belief in God (Jesus Christ specifically if I’m not mistaken) or he would not be granted his security clearance.
I mean, WTF? The Dark Ages are over, aren’t they? Who compels another to belief (or worse, a false claim of belief)? Have we learned NOTHING?
He is forced to lie about something that Constitutionally the government is not supposed to concern itself with in ANY way, shape, or fashion.
Look into the proselytizing done at the Air Force Academy. Look at the words of the Army general who talked about his role as a Xian crusader.
Btw, my USS Liberty friend doesn’t even think it’s right for the military to have a chaplain position in the service. It’s clearly done to help ease the fear of personnel who might likely be thrown into the meat-grinder.
He won me over to his position. The military should no more provide religious practioners than it should provide you with a girlfriend or boyfriend to have their picture with you when you go into combat. Those things, and your observances of either of them, are totally up to you.
ONE NATION, UNDER THE CONSTITUTION, INDIVISIBLE…
LanceThruster
@LanceThruster:
or “practitioners” even.
LanceThruster
God, (who also goes by the aliases Yahweh, Allah and Jehovah to evade debt collectors) is the supreme Holy Lord. He is perhaps best known for creating all of existence, with the exception of Himself, unicorns, the Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot, and Devil’s food cake. He is burdened with the unfathomable responsibility of sustaining the vital equilibria that allow life to continue, such as answering prayers, starting wars, ending wars and making stars twinkle. Despite this responsibility, God Himself shoehorns these important tasks into the corner whenever an important sports game or horse race is on, as He is the universe’s most notorious compulsive gambler.
from: http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/God
Dr.BDH
Though he [Moran] admits to some youthful indiscretions and flirted briefly with the lure of dentistry… That evil, evil dentistry, good thing he avoided succumbing to it’s lascivious charms.
Ruckus
@RedKitten:
Best use for a bag of nickels that I’ve ever heard.
grung0r
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, and no true scotsman would put sugar on his porridge.
Why don’t you consider someone who looks at all that stuff in the bible about hating your family, or being first in line to stone them to death for believing in other gods and thinks “Hmm, how can I do that?” and then goes out and finds something that will fulfill those requirements to be ‘Actual Christians’?
Cain
@Mnemosyne:
I know a devout Muslim man. Shortly after the tsunami hit Sri Lanka and other areas, he tells me that he woke up one night in a sweat with one thought in his mind – “I have to help these people”. He doggedly started raising money in the community. His employer would match anything he raised, and in the end he rised a couple of million dollars to help the victims in Sri Lanka.
He’s a good man. He understands religion, and I’m proud to know someone like him.
cain
Sly
What the God-Botherers don’t get is that the phrase “there are no atheists in foxholes” is not so much a criticism of atheists as it is a criticism of foxholes.
sherparick
One of the great changes in the Armed Forces, as well as the country at large over the last two generations, is the rise of Evangelical Protestantism, in all of its glorious factions, as well as a far more conservative American Roman Catholicism, in place of the old line Protestant churches (Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian). The ministers are narrowly educated, and pretty much taught technical skills of their trade and to turn themselves into morons, a person simply unable to learn from others. I still like to think of myself as catholic (although the problems with that church are legion, it at least teaches you not to take the Bible literally). I regularly browse through and read samples of Twain’s “Letters from Earth,” and wrestle with Satan’s rather pointed observations and questions about the way humans have portrayed the Deity in their holy books, as he compares the massacres of the Midianites in Numbers and Deuteronomy with the Beatitudes in the New Testament.
“Human history in all ages is red with blood, and bitter with hate, and stained with cruelties; but not since Biblical times have these features been without a limit of some kind. Even the Church, which is credited with having spilt more innocent blood, since the beginning of its supremacy, than all the political wars put together have spilt, has observed a limit. A sort of limit. But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy — he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered.
He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty. The babies were innocent, the beasts were innocent, many of the men, many of the women, many of the boys, many of the girls were innocent, yet they had to suffer with the guilty. What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.
The heaviest punishment of all was meted out to persons who could not by any possibility have deserved so horrible a fate — the 32,000 virgins. Their naked privacies were probed, to make sure that they still possessed the hymen unruptured; after this humiliation they were sent away from the land that had been their home, to be sold into slavery; the worst of slaveries and the shamefulest, the slavery of prostitution; bed-slavery, to excite lust, and satisfy it with their bodies; slavery to any buyer, be he gentleman or be he a coarse and filthy ruffian.
It was the Father that inflicted this ferocious and undeserved punishment upon those bereaved and friendless virgins, whose parents and kindred he had slaughtered before their eyes. And were they praying to him for pity and rescue, meantime? Without a doubt of it.
These virgins were “spoil” plunder, booty. He claimed his share and got it. What use had he for virgins? Examine his later history and you will know.
His priests got a share of the virgins, too. What use could priests make of virgins? The private history of the Roman Catholic confessional can answer that question for you. The confessional’s chief amusement has been seduction — in all the ages of the Church. Père Hyacinth testifies that of a hundred priests confessed by him, ninety-nine had used the confessional effectively for the seduction of married women and young girls. One priest confessed that of nine hundred girls and women whom he had served as father and confessor in his time, none had escaped his lecherous embrace but he elderly and the homely. The official list of questions which the priest is required to ask will overmasteringly excite any woman who is not a paralytic.
There is nothing in either savage or civilized history that is more utterly complete, more remorselessly sweeping than the Father of Mercy’s campaign among the Midianites. The official report does not furnish the incidents, episodes, and minor details, it deals only in information in masses: all the virgins, all the men, all the babies, all “creatures that breathe,” all houses, all cities; it gives you just one vast picture, spread abroad here and there and yonder, as far as eye can reach, of charred ruin and storm-swept desolation; your imagination adds a brooding stillness, an awful hush — the hush of death. But of course there were incidents. Where shall we get them?
Out of history of yesterday’s date. Out of history made by the red Indian of America. He has duplicated God’s work, and done it in the very spirit of God. In 1862 the Indians in Minnesota, having been deeply wronged and treacherously treated by the government of the United States, rose against the white settlers and massacred them; massacred all they could lay their hands upon, sparing neither age nor sex. Consider this incident:
Twelve Indians broke into a farmhouse at daybreak and captured the family. It consisted of the farmer and his wife and four daughters, the youngest aged fourteen and the eldest eighteen. They crucified the parents; that is to say, they stood them stark naked against the wall of the living room and nailed their hands to the wall. Then they stripped the daughters bare, stretched them upon the floor in front of their parents, and repeatedly ravished them. Finally they crucified the girls against the wall opposite this parents, and cut off their noses and their breasts. They also — but I will not go into that. There is a limit. There are indignities so atrocious that the pen cannot write them. One member of that poor crucified family — the father — was still alive when help came two days later.
Now you have one incident of the Minnesota massacre. I could give you fifty. They would cover all the different kinds of cruelty the brutal human talent has ever invented.
And now you know, by these sure indications, what happened under the personal direction of the Father of Mercies in his Midianite campaign. The Minnesota campaign was merely a duplicate of the Midianite raid. Nothing happened in the one that didn’t happen in the other.
No, that is not strictly true. The Indian was more merciful than was the Father of Mercies. He sold no virgins into slavery to minister to the lusts of the murderers of their kindred while their sad lives might last; he raped them, then charitably made their subsequent sufferings brief, ending them with the precious gift of death. He burned some of the houses, but not all of them. He carried out innocent dumb brutes, but he took the lives of none.
Would you expect this same conscienceless God, this moral bankrupt, to become a teacher of morals; of gentleness; of meekness; of righteousness; of purity? It looks impossible, extravagant; but listen to him. These are his own words:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
The mouth that uttered these immense sarcasms, these giant hypocrisies, is the very same that ordered the wholesale massacre of the Midianitish men and babies and cattle; the wholesale destruction of house and city; the wholesale banishment of the virgins into a filthy and unspeakable slavery. This is the same person who brought upon the Midianites the fiendish cruelties which were repeated by the red Indians, detail by detail, in Minnesota eighteen centuries later. The Midianite episode filled him with joy. So did the Minnesota one, or he would have prevented it.
The Beatitudes and the quoted chapters from Numbers and Deuteronomy ought always to be read from the pulpit together; then the congregation would get an all-round view of Our Father in Heaven. Yet not in a single instance have I ever known a clergyman to do this”
Mnemosyne
@grung0r:
First of all, Deuteronomy is part of the Old Testament, as in it’s full of that “don’t eat shrimp” stuff that Christians don’t have to follow. That’s, you know, the whole thing I posted from Fred Clark above where the old teachings are rejected in favor of Jesus’ teachings.
And it would help if you would read the entire passage from Luke rather than cherry-picking the very end:
That last line sounds just a teensy bit different once you know it’s about self-sacrifice and accepting the rejects of society and not about rejecting your family for being non-believers, isn’t it?
(ETA: Eh, screw the blockquoting. You get the idea.)
grung0r
@Mnemosyne:
I see. So Jews need to stone their loved ones to death for believing in other gods in order to be ‘Actual Jews’?
Your appeal to slacktivist’s interpretation peter’s bug eating epiphany not withstanding, you are still committing the ‘no true Scotsman’ fallacy(which I note you failed to respond to). Because you, slacktivist, Barrack Obama or Fred Phelps asserts that the only true Christians are people who interpret the bible the same way they do does not make it so. The people who think that the commandment to kill your parents if they suggest worshiping another god have just as much claim to the truth of the matter as you do. Which is to say, none.
I didn’t say that it was about rejecting your family as non-believers. Did you miss the ‘or’ my sentence you quoted back at me? I said it was about how Jesus tells you to hate your family. Jesus doesn’t give any precondition for hating them. You just have to do that if you want to be his disciple. I don’t see his stupid parable changes anything.
Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
Amanda, great story with the chaplain. Sounds line a hardrow you had to hoe.
sunsin
Precisely what drives Christian missionaries in Japan insane. Nearly all Japanese have as good a grasp of basic Christianity as do most American Christians, but they find it uninteresting.