Saturday, November 16, 2013

I Am A Blasphemer (Apparently)

   In my most recent post, I talk about the idea that you need to consider who is going to be reading or listening to the things you write and say. You then need to understand that the things you say and do may bear some consequence.
   In an extremely ironic twist, just a couple of days after I wrote this, a comment popped up which was attached to a post I wrote last year called "Christians in the park". There is a link to that post here, if you weren't one of the ones that read it the first time around. Essentially, the post described my distrust of groups or individuals who seem to have used Christianity as a cornerstone for either their own gain or as part of a political agenda. I then cited examples, as quickly as they popped into my head, of some of history's worst offenders.
   The person's two-line comment appeared at the end of the post but I have since deleted it, thinking that readers might attempt to link back to its author's blog and give the person a sense of audience he or she might not deserve. The comment described the post as "pure blasphemy" and then added that "God will surely repay" me. In my brief reply to this person, I quoted one or two nice things I did say about Christianity and then left it at that.
   The person who commented did so anonymously. You were able to follow a link back to his or her own blog but it was a blog in title only, had no content of its own and did nothing to actually identify its author. I also have no idea if its author read my follow-up comment, which has since been deleted as well.
   In my three years of writing "Neanderings", this is actually the first truly negative comment I have encountered. Because of this, I was initially taken aback. I then had to remind myself of my own warning to others---be prepared for the consequences of what you say and do.
   I have personal friends and acquaintances who are Christians and who demonstrate this and espouse it on a regular basis. I have never received a negative comment or even an inquiry from them as to things I've said about Christianity in the past. It could well be that they simply have not followed the blog (not everyone I know actually reads it) and therefore have never questioned me about it. Apart from this particular post, I have written on the subject several times in "Neanderings". I think this is because I often find myself wondering about, for lack of a better term, the "meaning of life". I wonder what, if anything, lies beyond. Because this is an underlying current, I write about it. I attempt to be fair when I do this and I attempt to explain myself clearly.
   If you go back and read "Christians in the park" very carefully, you hopefully will get the point I attempted to make. I can see where it's possible that someone might consider it to be "blasphemy" if you only were to consider some of the associations I make in it and if you only read the accompanying pictures I culled from the internet. It could be that the post is viewed as tainted simply because of those things.
   If anything, this episode has reminded me that there is an audience out there and that they may have strong opinions of their own. My biggest discomfort here is that the person who left me the comment chose to do so anonymously. I, on the other hand, do not have an issue with identifying myself. My best guess is that the person leaving that comment considers themselves to be a Christian. If he or she is a Christian who feels it's appropriate to anonymously attack (at least it felt like a bit of an attack) another total stranger's beliefs then I feel as though they might somewhat easily fall into the category of yet another person or group with an agenda of their own who props it up under the guise of "Christianity". Which is to say, under what I understand a Christian to be, that they are probably not one at all. In trying to take a truly Christian approach to anything, I understand that one of the best things to do is ask yourself what would Jesus do?
   I have a bit of a hard time imagining Jesus attacking me over a blog post.


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