Moderate & Progressive Christian Hippies

[EarthEden]

I'm looking to connect with fellow Moderate or Progressive Hippies aka NON-Fundamental Christian Hippies. So if you out there let me know;) :hippie:

[Guerrilla_Minds]

I think that being a fundamentalist Christian revokes your status as a hippie(what is a hippie :p ) IMO don't want to offend anyone but creationism is dumb, and but how could you believe that the bible is completely true and without error. Also fundamentalist Christians are usually hardcore conservatives. And here I decided not to include a rant on how these people are ruining America mostly because it was pretty offensive.

[EarthEden]

I think that being a fundamentalist Christian revokes your status as a hippie

Precisely. That is why I don't believe in fundamental religion or any sort. Moderate, Progressive and Liberal faiths compliment the hippie way rather than conflicts with it. If a person says they are a Hippie and a fundamentalists of any religion..then they claim is an oxymoron..cause fundamentalists do not support social justice..and they are always sexist everytime.

[NCW_Woodnymph]

:confused: Could some one please explain what they mean by "fundamentalist", because I don't see how believing in the Bible excludes me from being a hippie. In my case believing that this beautiful world is a gift from God makes me more determined to protect and enjoy it.

Please don't read this as in any way being offended. I don't think that everyone needs to believe exactly as I do. I was just curious. :hippie:

[EarthEden]

There's a certian "Christian Hippie" forum I know of..and while I have met a few cool people on there..a VAST majority hold to very 'fundamentalist' views. What do I mean by 'fundamental'? I understand that fundamental Christian used to mean a set of doctrine essentials..which this in itself could be examined..but there is also the Social Justice issues to be examined. I myself consider myself a 'moderate' Christian because i embrace the Social Justice beliefs as do the Liberal and Progresive Christians...such as...FULL & COMPLETE Equality for women and NOT that double talk male rulership crap as well as the eco beliefs of helping the earth..however, I don;t believe that in order to belief all this one MUSt reduce down all beliefs like mircles and all into mere positive 'myths' to achieve this...

However, I think some of the doctrinal issues must also be examined when discussing 'fundamentalism'. For examine, in general the far right Christians hold this "members-ONLY" salvation mentality and within this comes this additude of having "The Right Jesus," and that one MUSt embrace the trinity doctrine to be "Truely Saved." Fact is, I know many Liberal Christians that are Unitarian and this would flip the far right's lid..but this thing about "The Right Jesus-" I think many Bahias and those looking to Krishna have the "RIght Savior" they just happen to call the Savior by a different name.

Another thing..Fundamental religions are always sexist against women..and Fundamental Christians are right along with extremist Muslims and other religious far righter's in this. Lastly, Christian Fundamentalist are wrong in their teaching of literal hellfire threats in order to gain and maintain converts. As The book "The Fire That Comsums" brings clearly out, it has been proven that original Greek and Hebrew texts have been altered in the Bible to minipulate people. This is proven NOT to be a orginal Biblical based teaching..but later added by the Church fathers to controll people. Unforuantly, God and Jesus have been blaimed for alot ideas and beliefs created and generate by people...aka "the far right"...the sexism and vIP-isms...have burned many people..including hippies...This is truley unforuant...But foruantly..the ARE Christian Hippies that are NOT sexist nor of the far right..They reflect both the social justice beliefs of hippies as well as the peace teaching of Jesus..Not Jerry Fellwell...

[NCW_Woodnymph]

Thank you for explaining. I don't believe that the bible itself is at all sexist but I do understand that some controling people try to make it that way.

One more question. What do you mean by "social justice issues"?

[CowboyHippy]

wow

what started out as someone looking for NON-Fundamental Christian Hippies has become quite the moral/theological discussion.

hell, based on all the stereotypes presented here i dont know where i fit in. "Oh lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?"

If you want to connect with someone that accepts people for who and what they are rather than deny them for who or what they are not then howdy.

for me Being a hippie is a frame of mind that reverberates through my thoughts and actions. please dont revoke my frame of mind if i wander into some sort of fundamentalist christian gathering. I will forever try to be the seed of doubt and the catalyst for peace. I can't say for certain if I was all of those things you brought up would define my status as a hippy.

I would however bring up that rather than seeking out those like minded, maybe work on those vastly different and if you can impart a little hippie understanding onto them, then in time the world may be a better place

[EarthEden]

One more question. What do you mean by "social justice issues"?

Well, of course one of the first things that come to mind would be the Civil Rights Movement in the 60's..that fought for black people to be treated as completely equal. Most religions have achieved this one at this point in time. Next, I would say is the issue of women's equality. For those who have been attracted to Jesus' message but were turned off by present day churches sexism..I'd urge such people to start here:

www.cbeinternational.org/

This is a very well ran and researched web site that offers online FREE articles, showing step by step how women should be treated COMPLETELY equal and it also shows step by step how sexist people have minipulated Scriptures to try and justify their sexist mind sets and agends. Best of all it basically show you that the true Gospel of Christ was not and IS NOT sexist and that any sexism in the name of God is people's faults and not Jesus'.

I can see that LOTS of hippies have been turned OFF Christianity..because they have observed a bunch of narrow-minded and sexist "My God is better than YOUr god,"/self-righteous mentality people...And I can not blaim them. The Religious Right has done ALOT of harm by claiming to be thee soul spokes man for God and representive of Jesus...but it's important not to blaim Jesus for this..It's like let's say there were a bunch of extremist far right Hindus over in India that were claiming to be devote Hindus..but were going around committing terrible acts...well, it would be very unfair to blaim Gaundi for all this and say it was all his fault or claim that Hindu supports all this. It's the same kinda thing.

[PEACE FROG]

Didn't the Born-again , Evangelical Christian movement of today evolve from what the "Hippies" did with the gospel of Jesus Christ in the 1970's? Also, I think, you can see a heavy influence from the self-help I'm Okay You're Okay "self esteem industry".

[EarthEden]

Yes it did..but it's kinda like this..you know how there were SO many hippie kids back in the 60's that started off with good motives? Then only to grow up and become greedy yuppies of the Me 80's? Well, I have found it's alot like that with many Evangelicals (Christian) Hippies. The mere idea that kids raised Christian should be appealed to the hippe way of life..is basically good..but..what 'if' this 'hippie' was raised in a really fundamental far right church or faith group that taught sexism towards women in the name of God? Or maybe an vip "salvation" additude..and that everyone ELSE in going to hell in a handbasket? Well..if they are blind..they will do a contridiction of liking to dress like a hippie and maybe live in the woods and all but then they simply re-package their perents or church's old time far right sexism and hellfire threats or vip salvation theory...

When this happens then the 'Christian' 'Hippie' becomes either:

(A) a double contridiction they become like the religious answer to 80's yuppies=(hippies of the religious rite) :bat:

...or...

(B) Like the author of the book "Leaving The Fold," who came to realize the two-faced sexism within the Calvary Chapel church in the hippie 60's..ended up soured on God and becoming bittered atheist. :(

[Guerrilla_Minds]

Being a fundamentalist Christian means you are a narrow minded creationist as all creationists are. Being a creationist means you are retarded and refuse to believe in fact like someone who nowadays believes the earth is flat. To me a hippie is anyone who cares about things other then themselves. which is very broad idea.

[EarthEden]

Maybe I wrong..but aren't Hindus and Bahia creationists? And they are not fundie.

[CowboyHippy]

I'm a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction
Taking every wrong direction on his lonley way back home

[crazylegs]

Well said, Earth Eden. Fundamentalist Christianity, like many fundamentalist religions, often operates like cults with charismatic leaders, hidden recruitment strategies, silencing of dissent, brainwashing and mind control techniques, emphasis on "miracles", preying on the vulnerable and using heavy social pressure to keep everybody in line. Unfortunately there are always people who will give up their autonomy for the warm and cozy grip of something or someone more powerful than them. There's no law that says you can't be a hippie and believe in the Bible but keep your head and think for yourself plee-uz.

[EarthEden]

I could not have said it better myself, crazylegs! :hippie: Infact, I am gonna mark this whole thread as a favorite cause there such great points in this. This could also happen too in in not just Western Religions but also Eastern..Like if you got a controll freak guru. About 5 or so years ago I saw this special on 60 Minutues in which this chrasimatic leader guy mixed Pentecostal Protestantism with mystic New Age...They were all into that book "A Course in Mircles." This guy robbed all the memebrs of their land! :bat:

Then, again, sometimes politics acts like a cult too..trying to flasg you down in front of the super markets..and you feel like they are trying to recruite you into their cult. :D When they act like they are gonna do this..I also walk around to the other side of the store.

[crazylegs]

Wow I remember that Course in Miracles thing. I actually considered getting into it. I did join this other one for a while back in the 80s but luckily quit before they got too much of my soul and money. It was more of the guru type. Before that in the 70s I was in another one for a while that was actually relatively benign. The people were for the most part not too nutty, there was no big cash issues, and it didn't do me any harm really. They come in all sizes, shapes and intensities. Like you say, many types of groups have cultic aspects. You want to belong to something but still you gotta keep your head. It's a balancing act between your integrity as an individual and what you have to do to fit in, kind of like any relationship really.

[PEACE FROG]

Being a fundamentalist Christian means you are a narrow minded creationist as all creationists are. Being a creationist means you are retarded and refuse to believe in fact like someone who nowadays believes the earth is flat. To me a hippie is anyone who cares about things other then themselves. which is very broad idea.One of the other "things" you need to care about as a "hippie" are the creationists, dearest Guerrilla. Believe it all, Guerrilla but dont believe any of it. It's all a journey to nowhere and everywhere. To go to space you go up right? But once the Earth is in the rearview mirror which way is up? Journeys are often never what you think they are, but they always are the experience.

Quote by Neale Donald Walsch: "Life evolved through a series of steps in the blink of an eye that you now call billions of years. And in this holy instant came you, out of the sea. the water of life, onto the land and into the form you now hold." A different take from a book I'm presently reading, Conversations with God.

[EarthEden]

Well, but the cool thing is. CrazyLegs, is that you learned..you learned on how to focus a real one on one relationship with The G
Spirit..rather than being inslaved to The Man ( a chrasimatic leader or guru.) The gal here that is against all creationists..remninds me of the gal who wrote that book, "Leaving The Fold."

[CowboyHippy]

I'm so progressivei'm getting a new pair of tennis shoes and a triangle face shroud to wait for the next comet with my pals

[Hippie Staff]

Cowboy - Do you remember why those guys wore the fancy running shoes before wanting to board the comet? I mean, did they need nike airs to jump higher or what? These are the questions that burn inside my head... :D

[CowboyHippy]

Cowboy - Do you remember why those guys wore the fancy running shoes before wanting to board the comet? I mean, did they need nike airs to jump higher or what? These are the questions that burn inside my head... :D

damn. someone always thinks of the cool stuff first.

[Guerrilla_Minds]

Well, but the cool thing is. CrazyLegs, is that you learned..you learned on how to focus a real one on one relationship with The G
Spirit..rather than being inslaved to The Man ( a chrasimatic leader or guru.) The gal here that is against all creationists..remninds me of the gal who wrote that book, "Leaving The Fold."

Am I that gal or do you mean somewhere else :)

One of the other "things" you need to care about as a "hippie" are the creationists, dearest Guerrilla. Believe it all, Guerrilla but dont believe any of it. It's all a journey to nowhere and everywhere. To go to space you go up right? But once the Earth is in the rearview mirror which way is up? Journeys are often never what you think they are, but they always are the experience.

Quote by Neale Donald Walsch: "Life evolved through a series of steps in the blink of an eye that you now call billions of years. And in this holy instant came you, out of the sea. the water of life, onto the land and into the form you now hold." A different take from a book I'm presently reading, Conversations with God.

I can care about someone and not agree with something they believe in. I acknowledge creationism as a valid but I think its an ignorant one. but I guess there nothing I can do about that.

[NCW_Woodnymph]

Wow, this is the best theological discussion I have heard in a long time. This is great. :D


Guerrilla, why do you think creationism is so ignorant when there is a serious lack of knowledge about the beginning of life. I mean no offence but do you really know much about the science surrounding the subject or are you just going on what you've been told? :hippie:

[EarthEden]

I wonder what it is about the belief in Creation that is so offensive? What is it about Creation that seems anti hippie too you? Native American religions all have some sort of belief in the Great Spirit creating the universe..and yet in them where are ideas offensive to being a hippie?

[PEACE FROG]

Has anyone considered that maybe native Americans, Christians, Islam, Buddists or anyone else on the planet all gaze at the same moon and stars. All look to the same creator or look to experience the same creator. I've had this conversation once before on this board and I sucked at making my point..... I guess the "non-existant supreme being" is giving me a do-over. Just because you don't believe, doesn't change what is a very real experience to billions of people. Whatever their expression, of what the creator is. The problem for some being that they just can't wrap their mind around the logistics of it all. You have become a creator yourself, obviously if nothing was created, then things manifest in your life must be by your own hand and youre fine with that (so am I) But when you discover who you are in God and who he is in you, you will be so much more blessed the someone who has sat in a group somewhere wishing for stuff or being the self appointed behavior police. Because you have already embraced the creative "God quality" in yourself. And I love you, carry on!

[crazylegs]

"Our job is to reclaim America for Christ, whatever the cost. As the vice regents of God, we are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government, our literature and arts, our sports arenas, our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors -- in short, over every aspect and institution of human society."
D. James Kennedy, Feb 2005

I think the problem with Christian creationism is the way many believers try to push their beliefs in general, assuming their superiority and everyone else's ignorance. It's essentially a lack of respect. If a mutlti-cultural system is going to work, you can't have one group trying to dominate the rest. Real science is a non-religious platform and thus does not favor any particular group which is why it's valid to use in the public arena. I try to respect creationist beliefs of all kinds although to be honest I see them as belonging more in the myth category. Not to say that myths don't have truth and wisdom in them, but they come from a different place than reality as we know it and should not be confused with same. To go around saying things like dinosaur bones were put in the ground by God to test our faith seems...well, awfully convoluted if you ask me. Also if Christian creationists didn't seem to be pushing on the rest of us a lot of other repressive and impractical ideas and political agends(marijuana prohibition, abstinance education, death penalty, discrimination against gays), as well as currently or in the near past supporting a political band of crooks, thugs and megalomaniacs who have perpetrated probably the worst policy blunder in American history, I might feel differently about them. If you go back to the 20th Century you will find these types of groups almost always on the wrong side of major issues such as the war in Viet Nam, women's sufffrage, the "war" on communisim, the environment, racial segregation, support of brutal military dictatorships in Central America, etc. Sorry but these are not hippie positions, never have been and are the very things that the hippie movement developed in opposition to in the first place.

[Unkle_John]

Cowboy - Do you remember why those guys wore the fancy running shoes before wanting to board the comet? I mean, did they need nike airs to jump higher or what? These are the questions that burn inside my head... :D

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y294/unklejohn/roadufo.jpg

[Unkle_John]

I also agree with crazylegs, 100%

[EarthEden]

But is this aggressive religious mind-set "Creationism"..or.."Fundamentalism"?

[PEACE FROG]

I agree with crazylegs too :( but not all of us are that way. Dont be so quick to support "science" and their point of veiw. I dont think that they are very objective in that they often have an idea or opinion and leave from there (just like the other side) and set out to prove it with blinders on. According to science; the world has been flat, man will never walk on the moon, cigarettes don't cause cancer and global warming is a hoax. Crazylegs Intellectually you can probably run circles around me and I love you *respect* but do you think "science" would support your Astrology charts or Unckle's pagan traditions? *respect* Remember the guys on the Ghost busters movie were scientists too :D

[Unkle_John]

why do you say that brother. I agree with what you say, always.

[PEACE FROG]

I was just trying to say that science and spiritualism of any kind wont line up. Faith in the unseen and tangable proof. No one's belief is exempt. Nothing personal. :D Shit man I wish I was you sometimes.... dont get me wrong Unckle I'm one of your biggest fans. :bud:

[Unkle_John]

I appreciate that Ed, but I'm just a regular guy who gets stoned and goofs around.

[PEACE FROG]

Ya wish I could do that ;)

[EarthEden]

EXCELLENT POINTS PEACE FROG! :hippie: Again, what about the Hopi Indians for example? The whole rainbow Gatherings are based on the Hopi idea and what of them? They believe in creationism and the Great Spirit..does this alone make them far right fundies? I don't think so.

Oh and about those smokes not causing cancer..that's another good point. Talking about reason...if we are SO concerned about getting cancer from non-organic foods..which DOES make sense..then what about smoking of ANY sort? Marijuana may indeed come from a 'natural plant'..but do you really care if your brand of cancer happens to come from a 'natural plant' or not?

[crazylegs]

I don't really have a problem with creation beliefs, myths or theories unless the believers try to push their particular ideas on the rest of us, which Christian fundamentalists have a habit of doing. I guess there are Christian creationists who are not fundamentalists but until coming here I never met or heard of any. Lo and behold, some of them may even be hippies! Wow! What hole have I been hiding in? If so I apologize for connecting Christian right-wing Bible-banging fundamentalists with Christian hippie flower-flinging creationists. Now if I can just convince them to stop helping to put Republicans in office. As for Paganism, I really don't have a problem with it and I often feel quite sympathetic to it. It's just not my particular focus.

As for the split between science and spirituality, I personally don't believe there is one. I have never had any trouble connecting the two. Science is the study of phenomena on the material realm which I believe is a physical manifestation of God. I believe spirit infuses that realm but probably exists outside of it as well. Present day science is the result of only a few thousand years of human history, the vast bulk of it in the last few hundred. We are just little babies as far as scientific knowledge is concerned. It definitely doesn't answer all the questions. That's why we have religion, spirituality, myths, etc. Sometimes science conflicts with them, more often it doesn't even speak the same language.

Astrology presently falls more in the category of an observational art. It's not compatible with modern day science but I have personally found it to be very accurate and revealing so I use it even though it has not yet been scientifically verified and I don't understand why it works. I don't really want to get in a debate over evolution, the Bible, astrology or any of that. If you feel that hippies have something to do with Christian creationism, that's certainly your privilege. I guess I'm just burnt out on what a lot of Christian fundamentalists who also believe in creation science have done to move the planet along to Armageddon, which they are looking forward to and I am not. But since there's no one here like that, we obviously don't have a problem! Yay!

[CowboyHippy]

i refer to most of these folks as christian nazis
so wound up in their own thinking they will do anything despite the impact

they get people involved in some sort of theological discussion and spout off at length as to their own beliefs but change their willingness to discuss and sxchange ideals as soon as you start to speak. even if you don't contradict them or point out the flaws in their archaic practices.

the bible says wherever two or more are gatherd in my name i am there

I honestly think these folks initiate these discossions not to bring god into their life, or to be closer to him, but rather to make themselves feel better by making you feel worse. who the hell knows why, maybe they all spend some time at their bible study groups discussing who they have met and helped to convert and the heathen hippie stories get some sort of door prize

creationism vs evolution. I believe in both, it's really not that hard.

[crazylegs]

:cheers: