Anyone notice how many catch-phrases there are in Xianity that mean absolutely nothing?

[Taverner]

"Lift Up Your Hearts" - Alright, WTF does this mean?

"Bear Witness to Christ" - OK, so by bear witness that means to physically not metaphorically see Jesus Christ walk around. You cannot say you have done this unless you are lying.

"How is your heart?" - and when they say this, they are not referring to your cartiod muscle, but some other mythical thing.

I am sure you dudes can think up of some others

[vixengrl]

1. "Lift up your hearts" makes me imagine people literally

lifting them up, as if on a platter.

In Egyptian mythology, the hearts of the dead were weighed by Maat--ideally, the heart should be light as a feather. Maybe a lifted heart is a happy one?

[Iggo]

9. Lift Up Your Hearts

[sakabatou]

27. Heh.

[laconicsax]

2. Anyone notice how many ideas there are in theology that mean absolutely nothing?

:hi:

[Taverner]

3. Yes, true that

[realisticphish]

4. I think the next time someone says something inane like that

I will respond "breathe deep, seek peace"

If they get the reference, they know that I am comparing their comment to a fictional motto referring to dolphins.

If they don't it'll just confuse them.

Either one works :D

[ChadwickHenryWard]

19. What, like "so long and thanks for all the fish?"

That kind of fictional dolphin saying?

[realisticphish]

21. it's from Dinotopia

although it's a motto ABOUT the dolphins, that the Humans and Dinosaurs made up

[Lisa0825]

5. GYC!

"Got you covered!"

*gag*

"Hip" way of saying "I am praying for you."

once again... *gag*

[realisticphish]

6. hip christians

SIDE HUG TIME
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Oj0-splZw

[Lisa0825]

7. Good GOD that was awful (pun intended!)!

Now granted, I did not watch the whole thing.... it was too horrible to tolerate.... but I watched, then skipped, then watched some more.... The whole song was about some type of hug, and yet I didn't see them ever hug, sideways or other!? WTF??? Does touching make one spontaneously combust or something??

And what was the deal with the sirens??? Is it cool to have the LAW after you as a Christian? LMAO!

[realisticphish]

8. supposedly

it was "making fun" of the side hug thing. But this was at a Christian convention thing, which actually had strict rules about physical contact

[ChadwickHenryWard]

23. I always love those cruciforms they wear

with soft curves or geometric shapes. They say, "I'm hip, by I still make time to believe in Bronze Age superstitious nonsense.

[Goblinmonger]

10. I recommend the book

Metaphors We Live By and you will see how much of our language really means nothing in the same way.

[awoke_in_2003]

11. someone in R/T

said something about feeling it in their heart. I told them to see a doctor, because the heart does nothing but pump blood, and is not the seat of emotions. Someone else said "You should talk to a heart transplant recipient. Their whole emotional experience changes". Hmmm, needed a heart transplant. Spent months staring death in the face every day. Then they are spared because a donor heart pops up. Nahh, that wouldn't change any ones outlook :evilgrin:

[realisticphish]

12. goddamn

wow. In a philosophy class in college, we were talking about the "ghost in the machine" and the concept of the brain being the entirety of the human perspective, etc, blah, blah.

Then this girl raises her hand and says "but we love with our heart." The professor just stopped and stood for a minute, before giving a nondistinct answer and continuing

[awoke_in_2003]

13. I have been off and on...

taking some more college classes, and am here in the babble belt. I love those priceless moments when some 18 year old dingbat says something that stops the professor in their tracks. Being one of the older ones in classes, the professor will usually look at me with a "WTF" expression on their face.

[Twillig]

24. Consider that the Professor needs you to facepalm for him.

The mirror neurons in his head are begging you to provide relief from the stupidity.
http://www.ted.com/talks/vs_ramachandran_the_neurons_that_shaped_civilization.html

He may one day explode if you don't.

[awoke_in_2003]

25. i may soon explode...

the stupidity is crushing. what I live with every day...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqSzfpVUZWw (sorry for bad sound quality, but I wanted Adam's answer included).

[onager]

14. "Gawd never gives us more than we can handle!" "Gawd always has a reason!"

I always suspect the people using those 2 phrases have lived very sheltered lives. Where not much bad has happened to them.

So far I've restrained myself from mentioning these anecdotes in R/T, because I know the responses would just raise my blood pressure.

But I can't see any evidence of God's involvement in either of these events:

1. At work we have a really nice woman I often chat with. She's on the cleaning crew, so is probably not rolling in money, but she was raising 4 sons. One day a few years ago, she took the 2 oldest boys to a fast-food joint. They were eating outside, at the picnic tables. Apparently as part of an initiation, a gang-banger walked up and shot both boys in the head. They died right in front of her.

Can anyone find the "reason" in THAT? And watching 2 of your kids die is not "more than you can handle?"

2. A former co-worker's brother was on the LAPD. One day he and his partner went to confront a skinhead Aryan-Nations type asshole who had been terrorizing his neighbors for months. Everything from shouted racial insults to theft and property damage.

Mr. Aryan was sitting on his front porch when the 2 cops arrived. As they got out of the car, he raised a gun and just started shooting with no warning. My co-worker's brother took a bullet near the heart, which nicked an artery, IIRC. His partner returned fire and permanently removed one piece of trash from the gene pool. The brother survived, just barely and after hours of surgery.

My co-worker was a devout Catholic and often talked about the "miracle" of her brother surviving and how "Gawd was watching over him." I didn't have the nerve (or bad manners) to get into a theological debate with her. She knew I was a non-believer and never harangued me about it, which I always appreciated.

But again, I can't see any "reason" in that. Or what wonderful life lesson Gawd was trying to impart by a near-fatal gunshot wound.

[FiveGoodMen]

15. Like when he gives you cancer and you handle it by dying.

By that logic, an invading army that sweeps through your town raping and killing everyone in sight isn't giving the locals more than they can handle.

Apparently, "handle" has a special definition for xtians.

[realisticphish]

16. no, see

then it's to teach everyone else a lesson. I guess.

[FiveGoodMen]

17. Ah, yes. Kill one, warn a hundred.

Gotta admire that gawd!

[lazarus]

18. one of them threw that one at me

right after my infant son died. The results weren't pretty.

[sakabatou]

39. Threw a bottle? A punch? Threw what?

I would like to hear your story.

[lazarus]

40. a month or so after my son died

from SIDS, someone I knew told me it was God's plan, that everything happens for a reason. I said it's all well and good if God wants to sacrifice his own son, but I didn't appreciate his killing my son. Then I asked for what possible reason God would have for killing an infant. The conversation didn't go well from that point.

Years later, someone else made the "God never gives you more than you can handle" statement. I called bullshit on that, asking the person to explain suicides, who apparently do have more than they can handle.

[realisticphish]

41. ah, but the suicidal people were weak in their faith

if ONLY they had given a few hundred dollars to the local megachurch...

[awoke_in_2003]

20. you don't understand...

it is all part of the Master Plan (patent pending)

[ChadwickHenryWard]

22. Dawkins once wondered

why Our Lady of Fatima, when saving JPII from the peaceful religious believer who shot him, she didn't make the bullet miss entirely. It just goes to show how anything can be twisted around by a properly warped perspective.

[sakabatou]

38. You know, if God was looking out for him

He wouldn't have been shot at in the first place.

[Odin2005]

26. All theology is by definition meaninglessness nonsense

Really, read up on some of the Early Christian disputes on the exact nature of Christ. The nitpicking over meaningless terminology is hilarious. There were riots over minor points of Christology. If you were a Chalchedonian in the majority Monophysite Antioch or Alexandria you were likely to get assaulted.

[immoderate]

28. Have you been "washed in the blood of the lamb?"

And served with mint jelly?

--imm

[lazarus]

29. taken from an actual ceremony, iirc

at the time, it was common in some "pagan" religions to have an animal slaughtered above you so you were literally washed in its blood. One prominent Roman one involved bulls, but I can't remember the name. Mithras, maybe?

[realisticphish]

34. I seem to remember another prominent one

that used sacrifice... starts with a J...

[and-justice-for-all]

30. "It is all part of his plan."

LAME

[FiveGoodMen]

31. Even worse than the less sectarian, "Everything happens for a reason."

[awoke_in_2003]

32. god works in mysterious ways...

:)

[vixengrl]

33. That translates to something like--

"I'm sure God had a point here, but I got nothing." :evilgrin:

[onager]

36. My response to that is always...

"No he doesn't. God works exactly like random chance."

[realisticphish]

35. You should punch them immediately

and then repeat "everything happens for a reason"

[onager]

37. There you go with that "reality" stuff again.

We make our own reality. I read about it in R/T, until I started nodding off.

The true nature of reality debates make me LOL. If someone seriously believes we are not living in "reality," I like to suggest - in a NICE way - that they find a very tall building and jump from it. They should have plenty of time to create an alternative reality on the way down.

R/T has me thinking of something that has been discussed in here before. I'm REALLY starting to think R/T has its own version of the Xian Trinity - one person who is really three, and three who are really one. If you get my drift...Uncle Joe. :-)

[Kolesar]

42. Antiwar activists had rallies to "bear witness" in 2003

At a time when peace activists were having their civil rights violated (like me), these people were performing a less risky opposition to the war.

Bush/cheney and the SS were ruining peoples' careers at that time. It was scary to be in opposition.

[onager]

43. Just for fun, some Islamic versions...

Hamdallah - thank god. As common and generic as the American "bless you" for a sneeze. Muslims use it all the time, for every occasion. Sometimes used sarcastically, IMO, much like my cranky aunt back in Jesusistan will say "Thank you, Jesus."

Insh'allah - god willing. Also very common and useful for any occasion. One Egyptian insisted that it's used seriously, and literally means, "I will do it if god is willing." But other Egyptians were smiling when they said it, especially if I asked for something unpleasant. ("Can you pick me up at 4 AM, Mr. Driver?" "Ummmm...yes, insh'allah...")

So I think it REALLY means - "Maybe yes and maybe no. It all depends." Sort of like when you're little, pestering your Mom for something, and she says -"We'll see." (At least with my Mom, that phrase was virtually interchangeable with "no.")

Alexandria had an interesting local Arabic phrase, which is too long for me to remember. On summer weekends, the population of the city can increase by as much as a million people or more. Just like everywhere else in the world, lots of yokels want to go to the beach and beat the heat. For Alexandrians, this means allah-awful traffic jams, no parking, and higher prices for food and everything else. All of which they summed in the useful phrase - May the vacationers rot in hell.

[realisticphish]

44. I've heard that about Insh'allah

people bewildered when someone doesn't show up on time, things like that

[mr blur]

45. "Xianity is not a religion, it's a relationship with Jesus"!

No it fucking isn't - a relationship is a connection, an involvement; you can't have a relationship with someone who a) doesn't interact with you and b) if they were ever alive in the first place, is now long-dead.

[realisticphish]

46. It's like a stalker claiming their victim is their girlfriend nt

[cleanhippie]

47. "you have to read that verse in context"........

makes me want to vomit. I ask why is it when you use a verse, it mean exactly what it says without the need for any "context" and when I use a verse, I am misinterpreting it and don't understand the "context."