American Jesus

It's been a while since I have checked for new posts at Commandments of Men. I usually don't like it when bloggers post rather infrequently, but there are a few blogs I make an exception for, because when they do come out with new content, it is well worth the wait for a new post. The writer of Commandments of Men, Lewis, sure didn't disappoint me with one of his newest posts, The American Jesus.

It was a rant written shortly after the July 4th holiday about how for some people, Christian fundamentalism and nationalism end up becoming intertwined to the point that they become inseparable in their minds. This has resulted in a highly Americanized form of Jesus that the rest of the world has a hard time recognizing as Jesus.

Here's an excerpt from the post:

We've apparently cornered the market on Jesus in this country. We've turned him into a flag-waving (flag-wearing, as the photo shows), gun-toting, GOP-voting conservative Republican Tea-Partier who believes in State's Rights, no taxes, deregulation, who hates Obama, and who makes sure the gays know how sinful they are.  

We've made him the whitest Jew on the planet.No wonder the rest of the world is amused by The American Jesus. He doesn't look or act anything like the Jesus they know. He's kind of an ignorant redneck, actually.

For the rest of the post, click here.

When I was reading the post, it kept reminding me of this classic song from the band Bad Religion:

Here's some more great sites and blogs that I would like to share with everyone:

Why can't fantasy just be fantasy?

Speaking of fundamentalism, I ran across a great post by South African blogger Christian Kemp on his blog I Am An Atheist and This is Why. He was talking about how fundamentalists often can't handle fanstasy fiction of science fiction when anything is brought up about spirituality, they see it as evil (for example, Harry Potter, etc).

Luckily as an atheist I can just appreciate fantasy for what it is......Fantasy. For theists however if you believe in invisible gods then magic, ghosts and demons all become real too. And anything that does not seem normal too you, which is pretty much anything in fantasy land, is evil. 

Read more of the post by clicking here. In his comment section, I brought up the fact that not only are fundamentalists scared of anything that brings up mentions of spirituality, they seem to have a phobia of anything that comes from non-Western cultures.

 I remember as a teen, my parents being extremely suspicious of the anime/manga world, which my girlfriend at the time was into. I never really understood the appeal of it myself, but I never felt it was "evil" or suspect. Look also at the way they get bent out of shape about yoga. During the time I was in the Southern Baptist university that I had my nervous breakdown at, the state Southern Baptist convention scolded the university's board for allowing a yoga class to take place on campus.

(Sheldon's side note: I highly recommend that you also check out the guest post, What Are You Not Interpreting Correctly? that he wrote for this blog back in May)

Wrong Planet:

This has to be one of the greatest websites the internet has ever brought into existence. Well, you might not think so..... but I do. Wrong Planet is a site that was created primarily to be a gathering place for people with autism. I absolutely love the discussion forum on the site, and I recently starting joining in over there (I read more than I post, look for "SheldonGC" over there if you are interested). There are some great topics and discussions going on over there, and it's reassuring to see that I'm not alone out there. I can't tell you how many times I have been reading discussion topics and thought "yes, I do that" or "yes, that's happened to me before". 

Anyone is welcome to join in, whether you are autistic or NT (a term used there for "neurotypicals", in a narrow sense of the word, it means any non-autistic person, in a more broader sense it can mean anyone without mental disorders such as OCD, biploar disorder, etc.). Discussions are about anything and everything from politics and religion to parenting a child with autism/Aspeberger's, to science and technology, as well as various forums on different aspects of dealing with life when you are autistic. 

Webcomics:

When it comes to internet humor, it's hard to beat the webomic Cyanide and Happiness. If you are a regular reader of the blog, you may have noticed that I used one of their cartoons in my last post, Personal Space Invaders. Their sense of humor can be a little twisted at times, but it's always good for a laugh.