Contradictions

I just don't get it. Racist Mormons and Christians. Priests burning holy religious scripts. The KKK. Eugenics. Nazis. Skinheads...you all hate each other...but I don't know if you've noticed...if you changed a few characters and key words in you're beliefs...you could all just form a new group and get along just fine, hating and killing innocent together...what fun.

When other people act like idiots, a magic buzzer doesn't go off in the universe giving you permission to act like an idiot. When other people do unChristian things, it doesn't mean you should, or are suddenly "allowed," to do unChristian things.

Just because you lump everyone from one faith (Muslim) into a group (terrorists), and some terrorists do bad things, it doesn't mean God suddenly wants you to burn holy scripture. I don't care if it's not your holy, it's someones holy.

 The news about a Christian preacher burning Qurans on September 11 made me so sad. There's no other way to put it.

God loves us. God loves all of His children. He loves His children from every time in the history of the world. He loves His children from every country and in every religion. 

2 Nephi 26:33 "For none of these iniquities come of the Lord; for he doeth that which is good among the children of men; and he doeth nothing save it be plain unto the children of men; and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile."  

"Racism is an offense against God and a tool in the devil’s hands...The promises and challenges of a new millennium remind us of the continuing urgency for the human family to accept and live the Apostle Paul’s prescient pronouncement that all men and women everywhere are God’s beloved children. To the Athenians, Paul said God “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26)...How grateful I am that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has from its beginnings stood strongly against racism in any of its malignant manifestations. President Spencer W. Kimball stated the Church’s position well: “We do wish that there would be no racial prejudice. … Racial prejudice is of the devil. … There is no place for it in the gospel of Jesus Christ” (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball [1982], 236–37). The Prophet Joseph Smith, who experienced more than his share of intolerance and prejudice, understood the importance of caring for, respecting, and helping others, even those we don’t agree with. Speaking of the need to provide temporal assistance to others, the Prophet explained that a member of the Church “is to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to provide for the widow, to dry up the tear of the orphan, to comfort the afflicted, whether in this church, or in any other, or in no church at all, wherever he finds them” (Times and Seasons, 15 Mar. 1842, 732)."

http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=006ca1615ac0c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

I suggest watching this whole video, but if you don't want to watch it all, at least skip to 2:45:

 

Here's a good link for the LDS stance on religious freedom: http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/public-issues/religious-freedom

 Seriously- just love. When people ask questions about politics, war, homosexuality, abortion...just to get an argument out of you...answer with love. Answer love. I don't know all of the details. I don't know how everything works, or how things will work out in the eternities. I do however know this- God loves us all. Black, white, Muslim, Islamic, Jewish, Jane, Wicken, Mormon, man, woman, gay, atheist, Mexican, sinners, saints- ALL OF US. God loves everyone and everything He created.

 

Note: I was feeling very angry about all of this...racism amongst fellow Christians, hatred, ignorance...initially I wrote a lot of negative things...but I deleted them. I hope that the overall feeling of this blog entry was a good one. I don't like the idea of returning negative for negative...while I think it's appropriate to vent here and there, why should I ooze my sad on you? 

So...LOVE.