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…when he comes across a nice Christian girl asking what’s she’s supposed to do, on one of her online newspaper columns.
Well, he wouldn’t have done much had he not read one of nice Christian girl’s responses to a comment from a reader.
Thami, let’s put it this was: would you date a girl who was terribly racist? No? Because I assume you despise racism as an intrinsic value in your life and would not be able to align yourself with someone whose values clash so much with your own. I don’t think this is “childishly discriminatory” but wise. You’re avoiding unnecessary conflict and heart ache. That’s how it is for me: I prefer to be with someone who shares the values I hold most deeply.
Okay, let’s start at the beginning.
Verashni Pillay, wrote an article in the Mail & Guardian Online, in which she claims to be a “Christian Christian.” Not knowing exactly what that means, I’ll just assume that she believes that she’s a better Christian than most. Verashni also believes that her kind of Christianity imbues her with a special set of morals and values which presumably ordinary Christians do not possess…and other faiths fail dismally to attain.
She will not align herself with anyone who is off a different faith to her own because Verashni believes fallaciously that religion is responsible for shaping a persons morals and values, and that somehow the religion she adopted or was born into, does it better than the rest. Yes, it’s always the case that Christianity somehow comes out on top every time someone compares morality. And she’s quite adamant because she was:
…all the while growing in the most inexplicably beautiful and satisfying relationship I’ve ever known — knowing God
Verashni finds it hard to believe that someone who kneels before a different idol, could possibly have the same values as her own. I greatly respect and admire her political beliefs, but while she harbours this much distrust towards those of competing faiths, I can only imagine the ire she reserves for those of no faith.
So what’s a nice Christian girl supposed to do?
How about abandoning archaic religious ideologies that divide, and start having relationships with beings that really matter.
Lenny Says 
You say,
Yet that would serve no purpose to you because such a course of action would still eliminate the Godless from consideration. They don’t really matter except in the capacity to cause harm since they have nor worth or measurable value.
Hi jonolan,
If I understand “your eclectic rambling” correctly, the godless are by default excepted “from consideration,” since they hold no religious ideology. That’s not to say that we don’t have other vices; we don’t claim to be perfect angels. And if you are referring to the godless by “they don’t really matter…,” how do they cause harm, and to whom? And by what yardstick do you measure worth and value?
Which, of course means, that had she been BORN a Jew or Muslim or Buddhist or whatever, other than a Christian, she would obviously have converted to Christianity anyway, because she would realize that it is the real road to morality. Right? Sure! Hypocrisy at its pinnacle for which even her “Christ” would hold her in contempt! .
Besides her “Christ” can’t be much of a nice guy, letting all those innocent families go thru death & destruction with his violent tornadoes! Even if he din’t cause al that death & destruction, he could have put a stop to it with his enormous power. But he chose not to. Wow! What a guy!
More than 250 people died in the epic tornado outbreak that hit six states. Oh Man! That Jesus guy is at it again. Upto his old practical jokes. What a sense of humor! Will someone please speak to him & ask him to cool it! His silly antics are getting to be annoying!
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Good response. I kinda feel bad for Christians like Verashni. I was one of those cognitive dissonance idiots who thought they could reconcile what their brain told them with what Christianity teaches.
Maybe it will take an exchristians can decode the language she is using.
Christian-christian is a statement of superiority, it is a statement to say her belief is genuine. She really doesnt believe in sex outside of marriage. There’s no reason to mock anyone for their sexual choices anyway. She should stick to it as long as it makes her happy. If it stops making her happy, she should question it and reason with herself.
What Christians like Verashni can not admit is that it is hard for them to make sense of their faith in light of so much evidence that goes against it. They have to retreat into magicalist ideas of the holy spirit and jesus as a friend and lover and so on.
She wrote that article because it is probably hard for her. It is not unusual for christians to feel the need to defend their christianity in the face of evidence and disinterest from the world.
It is a little like the Truman show. Until intelligent Christians like Verashni learn to turn off the voice of their pastors, and less intelligent church friends who preach stupid things, and then battle with themselves, their fears, their questions, they will always be a bit caught between things and then feel the need to explain themselves on the Mail and Guardian to say “yes i know i am smart and beautiful and funky like you but I really am a christian christian, i do believe in jesus rose after death and that his blood is the only way to see the light and have your sins wiped clean”. that is what she meant.
With responses like this and other comments on her article, maybe she will one day stop fearing and step out like Truman did.
She will also notice as many ex-Christians do once they step outside, what a fake world of very nice judgmental people she lives in. People who think their faith is innocuous but it is quite horrible and it promotes them being horrible with the best of intentions in their hearts to serve God.
She will notice that Christians are not actually any more christlike than other people, they are just nice to their friends and only the friends they think are like them. Like most of the other people when you scratch below the rhetoric and tongues they dont seem to be especially more christ-like.
as an exchristian i can say that the real fear ruling the life of someone like that is not the fear of hell or the fear of satan. no its much less crude.
the fear that makes them feel like they must cling to the faith and defend it and her belief in it is
– the fear that life is meaningless. the fear that all the suffering is in vain.
– the fear that there is no final arbiter of right and wrong, good and evil, moral and immoral.
– the fear that you are just an outcome of 6billion years of a material process that god has either no hand or no interest in.
– the fear that god may be real and you might displease him
– the fear that without god there can be no standard of love, no standard of justice, no standard of truth – which goes back to the first point – the fear that if you die in a holocaust there is no final arbiter to make you horrible death meaningful
All these fears are actually addressed by the collective spiritual wisdom of humanity – from bhuddism to african spiritual journeying to humanism to islam to paganism to human rights
every part of humanity that is moral builds a bigger picture of human meaning and morality.
If Verashni or someone like her reads this, maybe there is a god, but it does not make him Christian.
If God is a christian, i hope he is willing to learn a few things about women, gay people, slaves, muslims.
but mostly, i think he needs to learn that there is a more objective Truth and a Love that exists outside of his whims as we have seen them throughout history.
Hi ex-Christian
I believe Verashni means well…trying to sell a Christianity that is less offensive than the one that reigns supreme…
But your analysis is spot on and thought provoking…especially your closing statement. Yes, there surely does exist a more objective truth outside of godly whims…
It is unfortunate, but Verashni will not respond to anything as thought provoking as your treatise above. How many times have I heard or read people of people saying …”well what if you don’t believe in God …what if you’re wrong…God will punish you”. This is hyporicy at its zenith. Deep inside she doesn’t don’t really believe. (“God’s not going to know what I’m really thinking inside she says”) She does not really believe. a God exists. She fears that a God …may ….exist so “why take a chance”.
On the other hand, maybe there is a Jesus God. Look at all the destruction of churches in Alabama & killing of innocent people in one felt swoop while they were praying to him. Who, but someone with the power of Jesus can cause such death & destruction. Wow…what a guy.
oops a minor blunder. please correct your reading of the above with
Christian-christian IS NOT A STATEMENT OF SUPERIORITY
at least not ostensibly