Hide Your Beans, Madison Cawthorn Warns Joe Biden ‘Could Take Your Guns and Your Bibles’ Next

My apologies for offending you Spike. While I’ve been agnostic for decades a significant amount of my religious upbringing and first part of adulthood still rattles around in my head. That religious upbringing includes exposure (not much, but some) to the Jewish Faith via a prominent (back where I’m from) family whose youngest daughter was best friends with my oldest sister growing up. “Mimi” was incredibly patient with some of my dumbass (even for a young child) questions but I did learn fairly early the Old Testament and more importantly what we Christians were taught about it wasn’t the same as the Torah. Most of it in Sunday School made my eyes glaze over and I got “that” look more than once for asking some of the questions I did. The kind related to that scene from the West Wing where the fictional President Bartlett rips up the “theology” of a talk radio host, embarrassing her in front of a large group of her colleagues. Frankly, by the time I reached adulthood I just couldn’t understand why so much of the Old Testament was included in the bible in the first place. Yes, I suppose stuff about the creation and the crap about “original sin”, the prophecy of the Messiah/Savior, some of the Psalms (many of which are poetic aside from what the good they sometimes teach) and other stuff as a background to the coming of Jesus is important, but there’s a whole bunch there that doesn’t need to be for the Christian Faith. In my own humble view it could all be distilled down to one chapter of how the world began, that there was another religion from whom the first Christians came and the predictions of that religion (Judaism) that one day a Savior/Messiah would be sent by God to “save the world” & then go to the Gospels and the rest. Because, as you correctly note most of what Christianity does (and I include mainstream like I grew up with – not just the wingnuttery part) is cherry pick a fairly small portion of the Old Testament which isn’t really the Torah anyway. And from where I sit unless someone has been brought up in the Jewish faith and had to attend the kind of lessons I gather you did even most Christian preachers who have had formal training don’t really know, much less understand the Torah. (Hell, the older I got the more I questioned how much they understood OUR book – the New Testament!)

The thing that ate away at me is this. The faith I was raised in is all about Jesus being the Messiah, the savior. For me the Old Testament was an ersatz Torah, and other than what I’ve mentioned why so much discussion of it in the Christian faith? And in particular why SO much emphasis on what you correctly point out is a rather selective set of passages in certain chapters amongst Christian fundies? Too many questions piled up over time, to a point where even a philosophy embraced by many of our founders of a “Divine Providence” unconnected to any of the major religions simply didn’t compute for me any more.

I do recall a moment of clarity hitting me like a ton of bricks, reminding me of that wonderful Jewish lady I knew from early in life trying to explain to a kid not old enough to grasp nuance that having a Christian, even someone who’d been through Divinity School wasn’t the best option for understanding the Old Testament, much less the actual Torah. Lewis Black had a wonderful comedy bit about it that reminded me of a proper, genteel lady gently suggesting that while I should pay attention in Sunday school perhaps when it came to stuff in the Old Testament I should keep quiet, and focus more on what the adults were teaching me about the New Testament. And she made sure to teach me that despite what some adults might say Jewish people considered Jesus a great prophet, but didn’t believe he was the Messiah. And, as I got older and we had a couple of truly meaningful discussions we both lamented how much division and violence was taking place both then and in thousands of years past over that difference of opinion.

So again, I apologize for not thinking it was worth taking the time to fully consider my comment, and note the fact that in addition to a condensed version of Genesis the other chapters, since they are only (very) selectively important to the faux Christians spouting their not-at-all Christian (as in what Jesus actually taught) verses should have been part of what I wrote

For countless people their faith is important to them. It sustains them during times of difficulty and helps them appreciate times that are good. It’s a guidepost. A North Star. I can respect that without believing myself. At least I can as long as those people when talking about their faith try to ram it down my throat, call me a bad (or even evil) person for not accepting their views and worse. Most people of faith, regardless of their faith respect where I’m at too. Hell, some of the most interesting discussions I’ve had in (relatively) recent times were with a couple of Mormon Missionaries who lived in the first apartment complex I lived in when I moved to NC. They were fascinated by my being agnostic and wanted to understand how I got there and not at all defensive about their own beliefs. I think we each found a measure of comfort in being able to have frank exchanges about faith or lack thereof instead of fearful and defensive discussions. We still thought each other were weird but in a good way.

There was a time when more people could have differing political beliefs and talk to each other that way.