(December 29, 2011 at 2:58 pm)aleialoura Wrote:Crazy Evangelical Aunt Wrote:Leigh, you know I like to answer these things privately because I dont ever want to appear to be ridiculing you in any way because I am not but others might think so and I don't want to even take the chance on that. So hear goes...
Since you are an atheist and that is your right and I am certainly not going to use this platform to try and convince you otherwise. I do however think that I should explain to you a little bit about God and prayer and the gifts and talents that God gives us. All good gifts, in this case Tim Tebow's gift is a great football player, should all be used to further the Kingdom of God. The 'platform' that God has given to Tebow, is the football field. Tebow has a desire in his heart to give God thanks and glory because he knows that God is the one that has given him his talents, he also has a responsibility as a Christian to show the world that he recognizes God as his Lord and King. All of us are given platforms to spread the good news of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ some are just more public than others. Unfortunately many Christians fail and are not bold in their worship of the one true God. Tebow isn't and that's why everybody is talking about him. It should be such the norm that the talk would be about the Christian that doesn't give glory to God. There are other 'professed' Christians standing on that field with Tebow... my question is why aren't they bold enough to kneel in praise and glory of the mighty God they claim to believe in.
The media and the most americans readily accept muslims worshiping in their workplace and schools when Christians are not even allowed to speak the name of Jesus in many of these places... even you can surely see the injustice in that.
I don't want to come off as arrogant, antagonistic, or rude... so basically, I don't know what to say.
What would you say?
Aside from telling her to stop getting her facts about christianity from FOX News, I would remind her that Christians are free to practice their faith in all the same places that muslims are and if anyone tells her otherwise, then they are lying.
I might also be tempted to tell her that the other football players are probably not as deeply reliigous as teebow is.
If you really wanted to get into it, I might ask her about why god chose to give Teebow the gift of really good football instead of giving starving chidlren of the world food, shelter, and sanitation.
I'd word them all to sound like legitimate concerns and avoid sounding like a prick as much as possible consdering that she is family (not saying that's a problem with you, but I would conciously put a lot of care into the way I said the above) because you can bring these points up and have a discussion - but obviously you don't want to come off sounding superior, which can be very easy to do in these kinds of discussions even if it was absolutely not your intention.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
