LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY enkinhou)

(cross-posted to my personal journal (enkinhou))

I do this a lot on my personal journal, but I thought it would be fitting in this community, so I'm going to post it here. If the moderators think the material here is inappropriate to this community, then they have my permission to delete this post. I promise not to put up a fight about this, since I trust your wisdom in what goes into this community and what does not.

I know this is going to be very dramatic and very polemical, so I ask you all to be patient and charitable concerning this tract. I believe there is content to which everyone in this community should take heed in some degree or another, but I will openly admit that my beliefs may be wrong. If I am wrong, then I trust the moderators of this community to do what is appropriate.

This is going to be a rant and a rally cry.

It seems evident to me that a lot of Americans, because of their Christian background, view the Bible, the written word of God given to humanity, as the final authority on what all should be allowed and should not be allowed. The dominionist ideologues take advantage of that by picking and choosing whatever verses they want from the Bible that fit whatever their views on their ideal world are. (Yes, in the Bible, this, the warping of the word of God, is considered one of the worst sins that could be committed by man.) They give the guise of being knowledgable in the word of God, thus baiting many otherwise innocent, good-hearted Americans into their fold.

It's time that changed. However, our conventional methods of trying to convince people away from Dominionism have not exactly been working. Again, this is because many Americans view the Bible, the written word of God, as the final moral authority. To many Americans, secular reason, though convincing to some degree for mundane decisions, stays consistently below divine reason and the divine commands of God from the Bible.

If that's what it's going to take to convince these people, then so be it. In order to take away from the dominionist base and wrest power from the Dominionists, we're going to do some Biblical prosthelytizing of our own. Whether we like it or not, we're going to have to get literate in the Bible (and at a very rigorous level, at that), know all its contents cover-to-cover, and show all of America what the Bible actually says.

Seriously, though this is not to insult the intelligence of any of you in here, since you all have so far proven your intelligence and compassion/consideration far beyond a reasonable doubt, how many stones did God command David to gather in the story of David and Goliath, and why did God tell David to gather that many stones?

In one of his letters to the various churches of early Christianity, what did Paul say concerning Christianity and the law? (Yes, I do remember a passage in the New Testament concerning this, and if my memory is correct (i.e., it isn't warped or anything), it should be a very important passage for this community and what exactly we are trying to combat...)

Though I am presently an agnostic, I, for the most part, grew up in the Church. Having been very much Christian and having read the Bible extensively in my younger days, I see the Dominionists for what they are: blasphemers to the Christian doctrine and some of the worst, most vile sinners in the eyes of God. Those who follow these false Christians have, for the most part, been shown only the parts of the Bible that suited the needs of these Dominionists. If we're going to break the hold of the Dominionists on America (and, thus, America itself), we're going to have to show Americans the parts of the Bible Dominionists didn't want them to see. To do that, we're going to need secure knowledge of the Bible in its entirety, and the only way to do that, ultimately, is by reading it.

What may help this is to set up a community or a reading group within this community that goes through the Bible from beginning to end and analyzes everything that is said, going through what each passage implies and getting the understanding of each passage consistent with the rest of the book. Admittedly, the Bible is one long book, and it will take some time and effort to do this, but I believe that this will ultimately be helpful to this community and help get America out of the hands of the Dominionists.

However, the reading group should be voluntary. I know some of you, having suffered abuse at the hands of Dominionism and the Dominionists, are still trying to recover from whatever injuries (be they physical and/or emotional) they have inflicted upon you. I know some of you cannot even approach anything even remotely Christian without triggering the awful memories and reactions associated with them. This is quite understandable, and that Dominionism and its members did this to you is nothing to laugh at or ignore. If anything, people should be livid at the fact that they did such horrible things to you. Worse, they claimed to do it in the name of God and Christendom, of all things. All I can say to these people is that, somehow, there will be justice, and Dominionism will pay for all the crimes it has committed against the world, against its inhabitants, and most of all, against God.