Christian intolerance among MySpace clones

March 24th, 2007 • 8 comments christianity, intolerance

So I came to work this morning and as usual, I started reading my normal Atheist blogs. I then came across this lovely post from The Friendly Atheist about a site called HisHolySpace.com (HHS) which is exactly what it sounds like: a Christian Myspace rip off. Now, since I work for a large web hosting company, I see these all the time and all of them fail in way or another so what sets this one apart from the rest? Christianism, that’s what!

Just going through the registration process is painful enough but then you have extremely backwards thinking and double standards going on. Take the tidbit of information on the first page alone:

HisHolySpace.com is an online Christian Community that is structured on the Core Essential Doctrines of Christianity. The Bible itself reveals those doctrines that are essential to the Christian faith. They are as follows: (1) the Deity of Christ (2) Salvation by Grace (3) Resurrection of Christ, and (4) the gospel. These are the doctrines the Bible says are necessary. Though there are many other important doctrines, these four are the only ones that are declared by Scripture to be essential…

I never realized that Christ was a deity, Jesus Christ was merely a person and a prophet not a deity. Making him into a deity would mean people would worship him and go against the Ten Commandments. Worshipping Jesus as a deity goes directly in opposition of Exodus 20:3 :

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

And since when has the resurrection of Christ been a core doctrine of Christianity? When I went to church, I must have slept through all those sermons because I don’t remember it at all. I also missed where the reverend at hand said his resurrection was essential to the understanding of the Christian ethos. It only gets more interesting:

A non-regenerate person, or a false religion, will deny one or more of these essential doctrines.

Just wow. How narrow-minded and intolerant. I guess they think that Kabbalism is a false religion too, just don’t go telling some intelligent, well-learned Rabbis that.

HisHolySpace.com separates itself from other online religious community sites, by only allowing those religions that follow these Core Christian Essentials, to be promoted on the site. Anyone from any religion is welcome to join HisHolySpace.com. But if your religion and/or your beliefs fall outside the realm of the above-mentioned Core Essentials, and it is your intention to promote your religion and/or beliefs on HHS, you may be in violation of the site rules, which could result in the cancelation of your membership.

I guess you can join if you do not believe in the Christian “core doctrines” but don’t ever say that or you’ll be kicked off! Saying “anyone from any religion can join” and following it with “if your beliefs fall outside our narrow scope, your account will get cancelled” doesn’t really mean everyone is welcome and you promote tolerance. Let’s get into the site itself and how backwards it continues to be.

Case in point: Rank User. I have no idea how often this is actually used on MySpace as not only have I never used it, I don’t know anyone that has in the two years I’ve been on MySpace but anyway that’s beside the point. On HHS, instead of ranking users, apparently you get to JUDGE them. Excuse me? Doesn’t judging someone (something Christians are taught not to do) usually carry a negative connotation in any social circles? I just don’t understand “Christians” like this. I was raised devout Presbyterian and if my mother ever found out I was judging someone or prejudicing against someone, I was in huge trouble because it’s against the Christian ethos as laid down in the Bible. But apparently, the people behind HHS have no problems whatsoever in welcoming judgement against its’ users and they more than welcome you to do it. I guess their version of the Bible says this is OK. Then you have such atrocities as “Add to Congregation” instead of “Add to Friends” or “No Gossip IM” instead of “Instant Message”. I mean, No Gossip IM? What is this, a Communist regime? I understand trying to seperate yourself from the rest of the clones but come on, who’s going to buy this drivel? Everyone, including Christians, gossip and no one can truthfully deny they do not do it.

Even though I’m not a Christian, I find this highly offensive. I think even if I was a Christian I would never visit this site and continue using the sinful and tempestuous MySpace because at least they know what goes on and they do not try to cover up. It seems they want to actually push Christianist values down your throat instead of trying to cultivate and market a healthy Christian image. I haven’t made a Satanist MySpace clone so I can use it to my own evil ends and make people feel like they need to repent after logging off. It just seems that in many parts of the country, especially in the South, people are being taught Christianist values instead of the old Christian values that have been taught for the last 2,000 years. They have all of the outward trappings of a Christian but once you get them to open up, you find out it’s all a thin veener and there’s a regular ol’ sinner underneath there that really has no idea what they believe or why they “believe” they’re Christian. Is this how we want our children to start progressing through life? As one dimensional robots, devoid of any humanity or self-understanding?

I just don’t understand this at all.