ABLb0y said:
Happyninja42 said:
"That was God working through you."
Hate this when people dump their diety onto somebody's accomplishments, and co-opt the credit for the person's success to their god. Or when people say things like "You can't do *insert thing, usually overcoming an addiction* without His help" Um, sorry no, I quit my addictions just fine on my own, to say that the only way you can overcome challenges in your life is with God is an insult to everyone who actually did it on their own without your magical, invisible sky god.
I hear this a lot where I live, and it makes me chew the inside of my cheek to not say something.
Yeah, and also when people say things like 'God is on my side' and 'God wants me to succeed'. That's also pretty bad, as it sort of implies that you're special, and an Omnipotent person doesn't have better things to do than help you... I don't know, win a football match or win the baking competition than something more consequential, like... I dunno, world peace or something?
You have to remember, though, that not all religious people are like that.
Whether or not God is working through somebody (let's not get into that right now) a religious individual who goes around trying to humble everybody is probably going to be doing more harm than good. My own pastor always congratulates me on my writing when he sees it.
It's possible to overcome challenges and break addictions without God, but God really does help in my own experiences. There are some things that I don't believe can be done without God, and there are some things that can, to an extent. The entire debate relies on where you draw the line, and it should be noted that I'm trying very hard right now not to offend anybody. However, I do also believe that there's a time to keep the peace and a time to take a stand, though right now I think we can all act civilised.
One phrase that does bother me, though, is "magical invisible sky being". I used to hear this a lot, and almost always it was being used to attack an individual, but it was actually attacking almost every belief system, even when the man who used it had religious people on his side.
As for the whole "God will help me win the lotto" thing, I hate that so much. When people try to reduce my Lord to a magic genie who does nothing but grant wishes it does 2 things;
1: make a mockery of God and;
2: tell people that if their life isn't perfect they should stop believing in God. Whether or not you believe in God, I think we can all agree that that isn't a legitimate reason.
God, in the Bible, commands us to love everyone, and to love everyone through our actions, not our words. "I would love to buy that homeless man a $2 sandwich, but I'm saving up for a second Porsche" is a perfect example of what not to do. In fact, "Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?" (James 2:15, NIV).
I think that a lot of the time the bad Christians are the Christians who aren't committed to the life of a Christian. The kind of Christian who isn't really a Christian.
As long as we're talking about phrases that we hate, I hate the phrase "grammar Nazi". I mean, first off, grammarians don't correct people to feel smart. To a grammar lover, saying "psst ... I think you mean THEIR, not THEY'RE" is like saying "hey, man, your fly is down". We often forget that people aren't embarrassed about using the wrong words or spelling of a word and probably don't WANT to be corrected. Second, the Nazis were ACTUALLY horrible.
Also, "that's so random". When did 'random' and 'randomness' become interchangeable with 'weird' and 'weirdness'? You should've seen how angry that'd make my grade 7 teacher, though. He was always a lovely guy, but improper grammar use could drive him FIGURATIVELY up the wall (I'm smiling right now because that's the kind of thing we think is funny).