God is one of us. We are all God.
>
>Anyway, the real reason I am responding to your post is to unravel your
>conviction that martyrdom (or rather, dying for your beliefs) is no
>longer in fashion.
It isn't anymore. At least not in America.
> Did you know that young Arab men living in Israel's
>Gaza Strip and the West Bank are guaranteed forty virgin wives and a
>palace in Heaven if they die as a martyr?
They're fanatics for the most part, so I don't count them. Dying for your
convictions is one thing, actively seeking to die a martyr (and take others
with you) is stupid and wasteful. That isn't dying for your convictions,
that's having no respect for life.
>
>Look at any one of the most recent headliner terrorists-- McVeigh, The
>Shining Path, all of whome show conviction to their cause.
Yeah, they also terrorize and savagely butcher others for their cause. I
don't mind dying for your convictions, but killing for them is an intirely
different animal. A horse of a different color you might say.
>
>I think what you are sensing is a lack of, for lack of a better word,
>"lack" in the lives of most North American Christians. Here,
>Christianity is an insitutionalised mainstream ideology.
I agree with you there, it's deffinately an institution.
> Any christian
>has a lot to lose if they try to usurp, supplant or work outside of the
>Law. (Waco).
They face being ostricized.
> In the days of saints and martyrs, the early christians
>gambled with state execution because they chose an ideology that united
>the slaves, women and disenfranchised of the affluent Roman Empire.
It wasn't an institution then, it was a ground swell.
> Like
>all underground movements-- the ones that foster martyrdom anyway-- thay
>invest a lot of energy into the idea that somehow your life will no
>longer be as miserable as it is. The prerequisite, of course, is a
>genuinely miserable life. And the conviction to make it better by taking
>absolute control over it (choosing to end it if it comes down to it).
>
It's foolish really. The only way your life gets better is if you make it
better.
Strange Love,
Darkstar