We'll just set aside the very real possibility that said comments aren't actually her opinion but what she's been taught to say, like a bird that has speech but no cognitive ability behind it. * squack * Scared of god. * squack *
This twenty-two-year-old tot has such a tight relationship with the Notorious G.O.D. that she feels that it is her duty to try and save all of us lowly sinnners whether we have faith or not. Forget for a moment that this is a young woman that has virtually no formal education and has not experienced life as an autonomous, sentient being. No choice in what to wear, where to go, whom to be around. No swimming, no dancing, living on a compound separated from most of the rest of humanity. The list of “no”goes on and on, to the point where I don't think she has enough knowledge about what's actually going on in the world to be speaking as such a leading authority about what's bringing s all to the skirt of “god's” wrath. (Wasn't wrath a sin?? I digress.) Apparently the god she's been told to believe in doesn't like humanity very much and most of us are going to hell for one transgression or another. So she's taken it upon herself, with her narrow worldview in tow, to tell her “fans” about what “god” really wants, and if you disagree then the “god” you pray to doesn't exist and you're probably going to hell.
Is that right?? Something to that effect.
Now, I don't identify as a Christian, but I grew up in a Christian family and I have mostly good associations with my family's church. I'm fortunate enough to call a number of the people I met there my friends. And, yes. I went to a liberal church in a liberal city where the main gig was to welcome people into god's house, not to turn them off and make them run away out of fear of hellfire and damnation. This isn't the old south. Gay people, poor people, people of color, pregnant teenagers, single parents – welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, and welcome. And if some fundamentalist jackwagon doesn't think that the god that loves everyone that stepped foot in that church exists . . . well, fuck 'em. You have your god that behaves like an alcoholic step-parent, and we'll have ours: the one that actually likes people.
Oh, but that's profanity, and that's something people go to hell for, I've heard tell. Like I fucking care. I don't want to be one of those IDGAF people, but there is a time and place in life to care what other people say and a time to let them whinge and pay them no mind. But some of my very favorite people are liberal Christians, and when someone trashes on them they're trashing on my people and I don't want to take that sitting down.
I don't know much about the whole Independent Baptist thing of which the Duggars are so strident in, other than that there were some folks for whom being a regular, old, garden-variety Baptist was not conservative enough for. And for those of us that actually know gay people and people of color and wear tank tops and yoga pants and drink caffeinated beverages, we understand that things like nondiscrimination legislation and marriage equality don't actually threaten the sanctitiy of jack nor shit, the kind of ignorance the Duggars and their ilk are so proud of is not only insulting and misguided but ridiculous. Gay people are not a threat, single people are not a threat, people that do not identify as Christians are not a threat, but try having a conversation with someone that is this fearful of everyone that is not just like his-or-herself. Nevertheless, different denominations of Christianity have been duking it out over who's right for so long that it's become difficult for some of us to take Christianity seriously. Some of them spend so much time drawing lines in their own ranks and pissing all over one another over whose interpretations of god and the bible are correct that my fellow nonbelievers and I are left to watch a strange game of “who can be the biggest kook.”
That's the biggest turn-off about organized religion for me: all the infighting and the slinging of insults about whose views of god and Jesus are right. It's ridiculous, and it's not winning a great deal of fans in this day and age. I'm not even convinced that people my age and younger and turning from religion – namely Christianity - because they don't have a connection to spirituality. I think it has a great deal more to do with this hard-and-fastness that has become indicative of conservative Christianity that repels people. I've listened to a number of people my age and younger profess to be atheist, anti-Christian, and secularist (like myself) because there are too many Christian extremists out there hemming and hawing about how everyone else is going to hell, and it's not well-received. Who cares about a “god” that doesn't care about them?? For the vast majority of critically thinking people, that's a tyrannical dictator, not a deity. Perhaps Mrs. Sewald didn't have the opportunity to exercise her “god” given free will when coming to terms with her spirituality (or whatever the hell it is she thinks is happening), but please don't put that on the rest of us. Your clan insists upon some form of Christian extremism – that's not everyone else's problem.
Judge not, lest thou art Jessa.
I don't know. My ancient Aramaic is a little rusty. You know where I'm going, anyway.
I've worked with children for years, and something that teachers say with some regularity is “focus on yourself.” You know, when kids want to tattle and tattle and tattle until the proverbial cows come home. So, teachers tell them to think about what they are doing rather than what everyone else is doing. It's one of those things we teach kids that we grown-ass-folk probably should think more about in our own grown-ass lives. Pray for your neighbor, if you must, but spending so much of your time calling them out just makes you look like a judgmental a-hole. However, I have noticed that adults like to teach children things they struggle with themselves. If someone says “leave me alone,” that means leave that person alone. If someone says “I don't appreciate your judgment,” that means they do not value your opinion and off you can fuck. Line drawn. Boundary set. Those that cross said boundaries are likely not going to be heard, because they've already been told no. No. One word. One syllable. A complete sentence.
People like Jessa Duggar-Sewald aren't helping people find god – they're turning them away. If god is so unhappy with humanity then why would we not just live our lives and deal with the rest later?? Be nice, don't hurt people on purpose, take care of the world, and if god is going to be pissed at the end of our lives unless we wear long skirts and reject any form of mainstream media (lest it make one think), then you take it, girl. That “god” is all yours. It's probably best that you continue to speak to your own, because many of the rest of us aren't buying what you're peddling.
I wish these holy people wold just talk amongst themselves. I'm sure that Mrs. D.S. Has fans and friends and family that subscribe to the same theories as she and value her opinion, and the rest of us are just tired of hearing about it. Let me spell it out for you, no one else gives a shit what your god does. You can go on social media and propagandize all day, every day. The people that like it will listen and the people that don't, won't. Kind of right now in this very post.
On one hand, there's something oddly sweet and simple about Mrs. D.S. taking it upon herself to try to save the rest of our mortal souls. On the other, she's being a total narcissist about the whole thing, telling s all we're wrong and she's right. Who are you to speak for “god??” I understand that some of these bible beaters think that god has emplored them to make everyone else in the world live according to their interpretation of their holy book. And 'thou shalt not kill,' 'though shalt not steal,' make sense. 'Do unto others,' and all that. But morality doesn't have a religion, contrary to what some religious folk think. So we end up with tiny, trifling reality tv stars like Jessa Duggar electing themselves the morality police – and if you're not a Christian on their terms, you might as well be carrying Satan's baby because you're obviously fucking with the devil. This kind of shit is turning people away from religion, not making them want to be a part of it. Sorry-not-sorry if that's a problem for Mrs. Jessa and her holy-rolling ilk, but I'd rather spend eternity in Hades than spend it in her brand of paradise.
