I call them Super Christians not because they have super powers, but because they go far and beyond, and I recently read that people of the Jewish faith take it to heart when non Jewish people throw around the term "pharisee" as a way to point out that someone is way too wrapped up into religion and behaves in a visibly hypocritical and holier-than-thou fashion.
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| Source: Dear Mr Atheist YouTube |
So, the thing is that I've been watching Dear Mr Atheist's channel on You Tube, which I find very entertaining. Mr Atheist makes mostly reaction videos to videos posted on christian channels, and most of the ones I've watched are reactions to a famous christian channel hosted by two christian sisters called "Girl Defined". The channel of these women has a happy, chirp kind of tone, and seems to seek to attend to the questions of young women living within an overzealous christian community. If you've ever attended christian churches - particularly the evangelical types - you surely have run into this type of person: the ones that look so perfect, like they have attained that elusive godly status that seems to elude you, normal, regular, daily life mortal ("sinner", in christian parlance). Some of the topics they raise - what I know of them, as I clearly, have only seen what critics post and share, so there might be a score of other videos that are much more muted, soft and helpful - are seriously troubling, or eyebrow raising, like one about whether godly woman should or should not wear make up.
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| Source: Google Images |
In general, from what I gather, the sisters follow a way of presenting their topics and arguments that relies on dizzying the viewer into loosing sight of the actual topic, to then concoct a message that doesn't actually reply the bait topic, makes it look like it replies a big question AND disguises harebrained life rules as easy-peasy godly solutions. Rather dangerous, if you ask me, to feed these "advises", specially to an audience with little discerning capabilities, or enough information from alternative sources.
Anyway, today the topic was "Six Types of Men You Shouldn't Date, Court or Marry". My first question was "who the hell 'courts' in these days?". But then again, I'm the same person who, upon hearing in a song lyric the phrase "save me from Hell" wondered who would ever want to be saved from Hell. So yeah, my wonderings about what people do or don't do, or want or wouldn't want might not necessarily need to be taken as guides to judge human behavior. Anyway, the sisters go into a listing of the types of men you should cross out of your list, and Mr Atheist dutifully addressed each of them, but still, there were things that needed to be said, or needed to be further commented, in my opinion. I don't remember all the types but they included Mr Talk, Mr Anger, Mr Pressure, Mr Struggle, Mr Obssessed and Mr Unsaved. Already the designation of "Mr" made me cringe. There's something kind of bothersome about they defining themselves as girls and refering to men they would date, court or marry as Mr. Sure, it might only be my impression, but this screams to me of pedophilia in the worse case scenario, or a misogynistic scenario were men are always portrayed as superior to women, in command, knowledgeable, responsible, while women are perpetual children in constant need of guideance. The Mr-girl relationship mentally created automatically place women at disadvantage: they are faving something bigger and stronger than what they are.
There is also the cautionary note that has not been added by our critic, where the viewers - all of them imagined as "girls" - are not asked not to fall into the same type of behavior that is not desired of their potential male partners. (There is no mention of Ms Talk, Ms Anger, Ms Pressure, Ms Struggle, Ms Obssessed or Ms Unsaved).
So, the point of all the types basically boils down to christian men that are not as crazily church obssessed as these sisters claim themselves to be. I say claim because I am personally not witness to their churchgoing habits. The types go from the guy that pretends to be an overzealous christian but probably is more of a generic church going believer or so - going through the type that desires more than the clean-cut, super-religious courting kind of relationship, to the last type: the Unsaved. The problem with all the first five types is basically that these guys don't put God first and foremost in their lives. Now, actually, from the signs these women give you as indications, you can't know that. From the many stories of abuse that surface from the Church, we can certainly say that the outwordly image of holines and dedication can cover up a rotten, currupted heart. We can also assume that a subdued, silent exterior can cover a deeply faith commited heart. In other words, the external signs - such as Bible reading, church going, participating in different ministries does not really reflect how a person actually related to their Divine entity, or how deeply and involved a person might be to follow their faith.
This also speaks about what people perceive as their faith, their god or gods and the path of their religious beliefs. Two christian people, claiming to believe in the same God, might have strikingly different personal faiths. One might believe God and his path might lie in the Bible and the strict interpretation of the preachers of their church, while the other might believe that God being good, his religious path lies in the way of being good and helpful and loving to others. And both being christians and being convinced of being good christians might believe the other is dead wrong.
Girl Defined's list mostly show their personal preferences, but they mask it as guidelines inspired by faith.
The last category - the Unsaved - covers every single guy that's not christian. For them, the sisters didn't even go into explaining the type: if he's not christian, it's an automatic NO. No matter his good qualities: not a christian, not an option. Wow, there goes christian piety, and there goes Jesus' lesson about the good Samaritan and him taking to all the outcasts. At one point one of the sisters actually claim that the Bible says so: not date-court-marry the non-Christian. Ok, where does it say so? Can you give us chapter and verse? More so, since the Bible is full of Jewish rules, laws and customes, a direct quote from Jesus would be needed in this case to make the rule stick.
I have not read the Bible (in full), but I kind of sure it doesn't say so. (Jewish people might not marry non-Jewish people, but such a rule might not apply to christians, as many inter-religious marriages show it). However, it's sad how these women are suggesting to their audience to cut off their lives people that think differently, that see the world differently and that could add to their lives. Thankfully there are plenty generic christians out there whose faith isn't so fragile as to be shattered by the smile of a non-christian person. People who are so confident in their own system of believes as to happily engage in a friendship, a romantic relationship with someone who's faith is different, and not feel threatened by it.
However, to the Defined Sisters that refuse to take upon adulthood, I have good news: I doubt any Unsaved, be it boy, guy, man, Mister, Goodman, simple person, Miss, Mistress, girl or woman, would not be interested in a godly girl or guy, but will probably run as fast as their feet can take them in the opposite direction... and probably not stop until they have crossed the border (another reason why Trump's wall can't be erected: the Unsaved need to flee the Godly).
