{"id":818,"date":"2010-01-28T09:48:52","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T14:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=818"},"modified":"2010-01-28T09:48:52","modified_gmt":"2010-01-28T14:48:52","slug":"god-fearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=818","title":{"rendered":"God Fearing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Back in the day, there was a popular religious phrase that people used. People didn\u2019t ask whether someone believed in God but rather asked if you were a \u201cGod fearing\u201d individual. In the age of public relations and individual empowerment, theists no longer use this phrase.<\/p>\n<p>Today, people don\u2019t like to be afraid. When most people fear something, they usually have a good reason for such a fear. Terrorism is a good example. After 911, people were afraid of terrorists. Does that mean that terrorists must love us? Of course it doesn\u2019t. That doesn\u2019t make any sense. But that is how believers viewed God.<\/p>\n<p>If you don\u2019t worship the cloud that God floats on, he will smite you and damn you to Hell to be tortured for all eternity. You should be afraid and you should worship him. That was the way people viewed God not all that long ago.<\/p>\n<p>Today, this reasoning doesn\u2019t resonate with most empowered Americans who don\u2019t like to be afraid. The stick doesn\u2019t work on the modern American in the same way, so religion tends to use the carrot a lot more now. God is love and he cares about you and will reward you in Heaven with an eternal paradise of bliss. Oh, and when you get to Heaven there will be trillions of dollars waiting for you and a porn star (because 72 virgins just doesn&#8217;t cut it here in the States).<\/p>\n<p>Personally, I like the \u201cGod Fearing\u201d phrase because is shows the bronze-age thinking that has gone into these religions. I\u2019m a more modern American and when someone threatens to send me to be eternally tortured, my first instinct is to fight back. I think many religious people feel that way too and that is why you don\u2019t hear people asking if someone is \u201cGod fearing\u201d anymore.<br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><br \/>\n<a onclick=\"return addthis_sendto()\" onmouseover=\"return addthis_open(this, '', '[URL]', '[TITLE]')\" onmouseout=\"addthis_close()\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;pub=dangeroustalk\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border:0\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/lg-share-en.gif\" alt=\"Bookmark and Share\" width=\"125\" height=\"16\" \/><\/a><script src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/250\/addthis_widget.js?pub=dangeroustalk\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button END --><\/p>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=818\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back in the day, there was a popular religious phrase that people used. People didn\u2019t ask whether someone believed in God but rather asked if you were a \u201cGod fearing\u201d individual. In the age of public relations and individual empowerment, theists no longer use this phrase. Today, people don\u2019t like to be afraid. When most [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1019,9],"tags":[1020,2215,2312,248,2265,2214],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":819,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818\/revisions\/819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}