What Did You Learn from the ‘John 3:16’ Commercial?

Those poor kids. 🙁

As we all know, if there really was a god who really loved everybody, He wouldn’t have created a world where there is an in-group who gets to go to heaven and an out-group that perishes.  The idea that He sends a Son to define the in-group and out-group (through if you believe in Him or not) is irrelevant to the evil of having an out-group that perished for all eternity in the first place.

The central concept of a perishing out-group is really sick and evil.  If you define God as Good and Just, then there would never be a perishing out-group and no need for a savior.  Christianity only holds together if you posit an evil God to start with.

What did I learn?  Nothing.  I think there are enough examples out there already which illustrate that there is no low too low for the high-and-mighty. 

But hopefully someone else out there realized, “Hey, some of these kids aren’t old enough to even understand Santa Claus isn’t real…Santa Claus…Jesus…wait a minute!”

and yet, when we push our kid into asking Rick Perry why he doesn’t believe in science, or push our kid into telling Michele Bachmann gay parents don’t need fixing we genuinely believe the child is serious and not just being used as a tool.

I learned a new way to gag at horrific things.

I learned that one of my gay friends supports FotF. Thankfully I didn’t actually watch the game to see the commercial. I had time to mentally prepare myself before watching it on youtube. Hope there aren’t anymore.
I agree that people would have been in an uproar had the religion been anything other than christianity. 

Lol. I love how our side will spin it however they can to rationalize using children as our political pawns.

“He could also be a bit more competent than sending himself to a rather
backwards part of the planet so he can die for three days in order to
satisfy his own ego.”

The first recorded drama queen!

OMFSM! I learned that, despite growing up southern baptist, the whole premise behind xianity never ceases to creep me totally out: Some supposedly all powerful guy kills his son–his ONLY son (what kind of sick fuck does that?!)–just for me, even though the son was murdered way long before I was even thought of. Then, if I agree to believe that the zombie son is magic, I can become immortal, just like a vampire! 

Watching innocent children happily recite that insane garbage is awful, but what’s really mind blowing is just how many grown human beings actually believe it. And have killed and died for it over the course of human history. 

Actually he just killed himself. Temporarily.

Of course the Trinity is even more obviously made up than the rest of the story. Centuries after it allegedly happened

True, true, Stev84. Even as a small child I had trouble wrapping my head around that shit. 

Let me get this straight please, Miss Sunday School teacher. Jesus is god’s son, but he’s also god, but…but…you said god loved the world and gave his son…so that means Jesus is his son and he’s god, right? Huh? Jesus *is* god? But how does that work?What? Oh. Yes ma’am, I’ll stop asking questions.

Donate, Donate! Go to their website which has more than one donate button on it. Also if you open their last financial disclosure statement, it looks like they had a drop in revenue, oops I mean donations. I wonder what their 2011 statement will look like which might explain their need to advertise and “focus on the dollar”.

I have a problem with this kind of behavior too. Putting your kid up to something like this IS using them as a political pawn. I won’t do that to my kid. She’s her own person not mine, and her views are hers not mine. That said, if she WANTED to ask such a question, and it was her idea and her initiative, I’d let her. Just like that little girl who wanted to ask Hitchens what she should read – that was HER idea, her mom had no idea she was even going to do it. Otherwise, yes, it’s using your kids as pawns and going for the emotional appeal. 

This reminded me of yesterday’s post on Love Joy Feminism about kids brought to the Ohio Statehouse with teddy bears to lobby for the (anti-abortion) “Heartbeat Bill”  http://lovejoyfeminism.blogspot.com/2012/01/little-child-shall-lobby-them.html

Ironically, the only Biblical reference to the trinity, the Comma Johanneum, was slipped into the text centuries after Jesus H. Christ’s alleged life and death.
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Whenever I hear the stupid-ass bit about “separation of church and state doesn’t appear in the constitution” I like to come back with “tell me where “trinity” appears in your Bible.”

When I was 19 I was an “investigator” of the Latter Day Saint (Mormon) church. An investigator is what they call someone who is interested in joining their church. I’ll never forget the first Sunday I was sitting in one of their sacrament meetings and a little girl, no older than maybe 6, was given a piece of paper and ushered to the front of the congregation to walk up the steps to a podium and read off the paper about how much she believed in the teachings of their church.

All of the adults around me “oohed” and “ahed” about how adorable it was. One lady behind me even said, “I can’t believe she feels the spirit so strongly at such a young age!”. The little girl looks up from the podium at all of us, smiles in a nervous way, and walks back to her seat.

Then to my unpleasant surprise, an adult pulls a young (similar in age) boy up, and HANDS HIM THE SAME PAPER TO READ.

I remember feeling physically ill. Indoctrination is a past time for Christians.

Yes, I have a Fundie brother-in-law like that. They don’t push Santa because of the danger that the kids will get Santa mixed up with Jeebus, and then what happens when they find out that Santa isn’t real?  Can’t have the kids questioning, oh, no.

If you go look at the video of the kid confronting Bachmann, there’s an early post from the comments in which the person who took the video says the kid wanted to ask the question.  Hemant blogged about it.

I had that video bookmarked, but as you say, “copyright violation” although, I think it was totally done well within fair use. 

Even if Jesus was special, it’s not like God couldn’t have made more! He’s God! They say he gave his “only” son like he’s fucking limited somehow?!

When are we going to finally re-write that passage to what it really means? And God so wanted to be worshipped by his fallen creation, that he impregnated a virgin with himself so he could grow up and sacrifice himself to himself, and come back to life just to show off?

I always think of how self-centered this act is. It’s like god is saying “sorry, mankind, I’d ask one of you to perform the ultimate sacrifice, but I’m afraid you’d just cock it up. Also: you’re not gods, so you won’t resurrect like I can, so it’ll be the same trick but without the prestige.”

You can coach a kid to say just about anything with conviction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loDMRzPiCic&feature=share

Strange, I had no trouble with the illogic, after all it was a fairy story, it didn’t have to make sense.

But it did have to have a moral, and the scapegoat/whipping boy mentality is just disgusting!

I think that what I learned from that video is that God inclusive ideals seem to be at odds with a lot of things that he (or people on his behalf) has said. It is odd to make such a big deal about how much God loves everyone and anyone, when the take-home point is ultimately that God only loves those who love him back (and do so correctly). It honestly baffles me that people, like those involved in the video, can’t see the logical flaw in proclaiming how God loves the whole world and *everyone* in it, except for those who are pro-choice, gay, engage in premarital sex, etc.

and of course the person shoving a camera in real close to catch the moment on video is more convincing than the obvious discomfort the kid was going through. Even I gave the cameraperson the benefit of the doubt and the kid was just really shy, that’s no excuse for pushing the camera in his face to film Bachmann getting embarrassed. Even if the kid had pure motives, the cameraperson did not. It was purp0sely filmed to score political points, and using a kid to do it is just pathetic.

I love to watch NFL football games.  With the exception of one NFL game per year, I watch zero commercials.  I start watching a game about an hour after it begins but I have been recording it on my DVR – so I can work through the one-hour backlog by zapping past commercials.  

I noticed this commercial as it zipped by in 8x speed.  I was SO happy that FotF dumped a bucket of the money they collected from rubes into ad time to support network broadcasts of a sport I enjoy watching.  

Especially this one, in which their hero-du-jour (Tebow) was getting his butt ripped to shreds.  So completely, in fact, that at one point New England’s QB punted on 3rd down because even he was ashamed to run up the score any worse.

Guess Jesus decided to take the Pats and give the points this time.

Everywhere I looked in that case had similar criticism. Using children to push your political agenda is terrible.

The only good thing about this ad is how it reminds me of how badly the Broncos got their asses kicked. Seeing the team starring one of the most obnoxious football players in recent member just get curbstomped warms the black, cold cockles of my heart. :3

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world”
I do things for those I love.  I’m there for them when I need them, I make them soup when they’re sick and hold them when they are sad.  I talk to them and laugh at their jokes even when they aren’t that funny. I miss them when they aren’t near me and think fondly of the times we have shared together.  

None of this applies to “God”.”that He gave”He “lent” his son.  “Gave” means to pass to another with no thought of getting back.  Jesus apparently died and returned and then went to live in heaven with his father.  There is no “gave” about this.”His only begotten Son”His deliberately manufactured son, designed specifically for the purpose of dying as a sacrifice to appease himself for a crime that he, himself manufactured.  That’s a revolting concept in itself.”that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

People are still dying.  Not one person has ever shown that they are immortal.  We can conclude that this means that nobody really believes in this god or that the claim is false.  I know that really fervent believers exist (unfortunately) so that must mean that the claim is false.

Think about that for a moment.  The sacrifice, no matter how brief, was to grant eternal life to believers but no believers have eternal life.  It was a pointless and revolting exercise that had no actual impact on reality.  Why do Christians hold this up as some sort of wonderful thing again?

I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again: the day a Christian cites Matthew 6:5-8 will be the day I’ll consider believing in Christianity (again).

For reference: “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

“But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

“But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

“Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.”

(King James Version.  Just like God wrote it :rollseyes:.)

The Southern Baptist church I grew up in does cite that passage, frequently. (or at least they used to — I don’t really know much of what has gone on since I left). And yet they still obnoxiously hold hands around the table for a meal prayer in restaurants. And the part about “vain repetitions” is taken as a jab at Catholics. Never mind that although they only serve communion once a quarter, they say the same words every time. Knowing the scripture doesn’t change behavior unless it serves the agenda.

Ah yes, fond memories. I memorized my first verse at age three. THREE. I could have been one of those kids.

Send this girl to college. She’s an atheist!  http://andreascollegefund.chipin.com/andreas-college-fund