Those who follow this blog may be a bit disconcerted by the post left by Sean, a former Catholic/Orthodox Christian who now is either a Buddhist or a follower of another religion which utilizes natural substances as part of the liturgy. These substances are, from what I understand, ingested as a drink which allows the partaker to 'work on an Astral Plane'.
Sean, erroneously, is under the impression that because I do not advocate for a complete and total legalization of all drugs currently considered illegal in the United States I am a persecutor of his religion. I do not agree. He now hates all Christians and so, because I believe the latest ruling by the Obama Administration is a form of religious persecution, I am a hypocrite. You may read his post and the foul language he uses. I am so sorry he has chosen to end our friendship but I do not approve of this type of behavior and I will not tolerate this type of abuse from men or women.
Sean made a very nasty accusation against me - that I compared the practice of his religion to the practices of Warren Jeffs, the leader of the FLDS currently in prison for having sex with minors. I did not. In order to make it clear to my readers what I did say, I have chosen to copy and paste the message I sent to Sean on Facebook.
This is a response I made to a message Sean sent to me.
It is:
You accused me of deleting a post which I did not do. You stated that as a fact.
You read into one thing I wrote something I did not intend and stated it as fact.
You painted me with a broad brush of "Prohibitionist" which I am NOT and stated THAT as fact.
Those are the same tactics people like Brad and Wayne use and I am SHOCKED that you would do the same.
Let me make myself VERY clear. To think that we, as Americans, cannot honor each others religions without protecting us from horrible people that might try to exploit the law in the name of religion is ridiculous. I have NEVER supported laws that do not allow indigenous people to use natural substances such as peyote as a sacrament. I am unfamiliar with your religion but if you use a natural substance or substances in a sacramental manner then you should be allowed to do so.
However, I do believe safeguards against bogus prophets and/religions or people who wish to exploit children in the name of religion need to be in place. There is no reason that you cannot practice your sacraments AND someone like Warren Jeffs can go to prison for having sex with 12 year old girls - he is also yelling persecution. In his religion his practices of bedding and impregnating children is essential for him to get his own planet some day and become a god.
The fact that I think your religion is a false religion does not influence my belief that you should be allowed to practice it. And I would HOPE that the fact that YOU think MY religion is false would not influence YOUR belief that I should be allowed to practice it. If I am wrong then we are farther apart than simply having different religions.
And I am shocked that anyone would argue that that it is on to tolerate persecution because they don't happen to like the people being persecuted. That, in my opinion, is flat out evil.
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It is quite clear that I did not equate his religion with the practices of Warren Jeffs. Rather, I stated that I believe there needs to be some sort of safeguards in place because there will always be bogus, mean and exploitative people who claim religious persecution as a way to cover up crimes. In other words, Original Sin has given us a fallen nature. There are those people who have given into that fallen nature. They will pretend to be Shepherds when they are wolves (sort of a bad borrowing of Christ's original metaphor there but you should be able to understand what I mean).
I am so sorry Sean has decided to hate people like me and others who follow Truth. However, I absolutely defend his right to hate me. What he does NOT have a right to do is lie and malign and to persecute. Hate away, but keep it to yourself.
Today's Lauds begins with:
Lord, open my lips And my mouth will proclaim your praise.
Come let us worship Christ, the King of martyrs.
Since it appears we have entered into an age of martyrdom, we better get used to the kind of reaction I got from Sean. Let's hold these people up in prayer and especially pray that the fires of their Baptisms be rekindle so that they may return to Holy Mother Church.
Amen.
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