Dear Lians

My Dear Dear Lying Friends and Neighbors:

I know why politicians lie. 

What is really sickening is the dishonesty on the part of my friends and neighbors: voters. 

Why do you lie? 

Oh, wait!?! You are a Conservative Christians? Don't you realize that "bearing false witness" means "telling lies?" It is. I wouldn't lie to you. It really is.

Lying includes far more than claiming that the sky is always green.   

Shocking news: Creating a false impression is lying, too. That means that when you use "buzz-words" to create a false impression, you are lying.

When you tell part of a story to create a false impression, you are lying.

When you share others' lies, you are lying. Yes, even if it is a really cute meme.

When you watch television, read newspapers, and read journals and blogs that are lying, you are participating in lying and enabling liars.

Didn't your parents count it is as a lie if you shared information that was a lie? Yes, they did. Or they should have. 

Refusing to read, watch, or believe contradictory information is participating in a lie.

It is perfectly alright to have values! To vote on your values! To vote for candidates that share your values!

You don't have to lie about it.

Don't make me call your parents! Stop it right now!

Love, Vivian

Dear Evangelicals

WHAT EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND

Dearest Evangelical, Right Wing, Ultra-Conservative, One and Only 

True Religious:

No! I'm not talking to Muslims! I'm talking to you Conservative Christians - the only ones in all the earth who go to heaven.

The only ones that God speaks to. Wait! God chose to speak to Pat Robertson and not Stephen Hawking? What's that about?

I have breaking news! 

Other religions also believe that they are the “one and only true religion.”

Many religions (most?) view others’ religion as wrong, in error, etc, also. They believe that you are in the wrong.

There is no reason for Conservative Christians to be riled because others view them as infidels when they view every other religious person as an infidel.

In fact, some religions do not view themselves as a belief system or religion but as “reality.”

People just are not attracted to being told that they are going to burn in ever-lasting hell. Not a lot of appeal there.

Many Conservative Christians are very out-spoken in their condemnation of everyone and everything that they disagree with. That is what others experience: condemnation, judgment, etc.

Evangelical/Conservative Christians, in fact, seem to have set the goal of being the judges of all peoples and all religions.

Do any Evangelical/Conservative Christian leaders preach loving one’s neighbor as oneself? Publicly? Privately, they sometimes love their neighbors a bit tooooo much.

Do any Evangelicals take seriously Jesus’ commandments? To go into a closet to pray. To not make a public spectacle of oneself. To feed the poor. Visit the imprisoned. Care for widows and orphans?

Experiences that might make one bitter – or at least not receptive:

My child was told by a youth minister that her father was not going to heaven (she knew that meant going to hell) because he is Jewish.

I have heard a group of Evangelicals condemning Lutherans (Lutherans!) as “not Christian” because they believe in “good works.”  Good works!

I have been told that the mainline Christian Church that I grew up in is a “cult” because we believe that “Faith without works is dead.”  A cult!

My dearest friends, ask me if I believe that God has spoken to you (and to you alone) and appointed you the judges of the rest of humanity?

Why, no! She spoke to me and me alone!