If you are a Browncoat and a Christian....sound-off....NO AGENDA...just curious.

POSTED BY: Stillshiny
UPDATED: Saturday, August 19, 2006 06:16
VIEWED: 15492
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STILLSHINY

Thursday, August 10, 2006 2:56 PM

This isn't an Us and Them or an Us vs Them thread. I'm just curious.

I find it cool how many Christians dig Joss' work. I think it's a credit to you to see beyond all the *flubotonam and enjoy the gift of Joss' storytelling.

*flubotonam I'm sure I spelled it wrong. but it's the word Joss uses to describe the mystical stuff

If the thread is inappropriate, Haken feel free to remove it, or move it to Real World.

So let me sound off first

Stillshiny - I am a born-again Christian and a Browncoat. Shiny Hallelujah!

"We had ties that could not be broken, except by the passing of time. Like a rock. A broken time rock. And you're very special to me, my broken time rock people." - Nathan Fillion

Stillshiny's Shop - Original creator of the -isms series
http://www.spreadshirt.com/shop.php?sid=4728

http://www.myspace.com/robdhiii

DARKFLY

Thursday, August 10, 2006 3:18 PM

I'm a Christian and I think Firefly & Serenity are the best TV show & Movie ever,and I think it's good it raises questions on violence & moral & other things.And it also doesn't have many swear words which is a good thing but it doen't mean I can't tolerate swearing,come on most of us Christians(theirs a lot of us) have seen The Terminator,The Rock(over 100 swear words),etc.

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Go to http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=19&t=22697 for more info!

Things are about to get interesting...Define interesting...Oh GOD oh GOD we're all going to die.

GRIZWALD

Thursday, August 10, 2006 3:27 PM

*raises hand*

Christian and Browncoat here, too.

___________________________________________________
* If you're a leaf on the wind
* If you aim to misbehave
* If they can't take the sky from you
* If you are going to the Special Hell
* If you like the taste of Mudder's Milk
* If you carry Serenity with you everywhere you go
then you are a Browncoat, and you're with family.

Click on my profile for my Annoyingly Long List of Firefly Links.

BETHERS0921

Thursday, August 10, 2006 3:35 PM

I'm a Christian Browncoat, as well. I used to be totally obsessed with Buffy and Angel, and now I'm totally obsessed with Firefly.

Apparently, I just can't get enough of Joss!

ZZETTA13

Thursday, August 10, 2006 3:52 PM

To begin my post I first want to say that whatever a person deems is true is their belief. I'm not posting to preach or try to change anyones idea of things.

Now do I believe in God? I do believe in a creator or some kind of creative source. A higher Power that started it all. If that's saying I believe in God. Then I do.

Even if I think back to the BIG BANG theory, I think well,what lit the fuse? I don't think that things just happened or that one day two chemicals got together and said "Hey lets unite and start life!" I just don't see it that way. Now as for disagreements. I respect anyones opinion ( I hope they respect mine) I'm not here to tell them they're wrong and I'm right or anything else. I'm willing to look at things from opposite angles. Even scientists don't believe that things just happen. They spend years tracing things out to find the source. If this lead to this then this....and so on.

Mankind will always search for the beginning. What will we find? I think we will find God,not just the end of a frayed string. But thats just me.Maybe we will only find out at the end of this life.

So the question, am I a Christian? Well I do believe in Christ. He is my brother. So that would be a yepper.

Now for another question. Do I live life as I should. Well, I'm working on getting better. Just hope I have the time to do it

Z

MAVOURNEEN

Thursday, August 10, 2006 3:54 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Stillshiny:

I find it cool how many Christians dig Joss' work.

This surprises me.

BTVS - Magical Arts / Witchcraft. Lesbianism. Vampirism.
Quote from alabamabaptist.org
John Andrew Murray, headmaster of St. Timothy’s-Hale School in Raleigh, N.C., warns on the Focus on the Family Web site that media influences like Harry Potter, “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch” and “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” are causing a generation of children to be “desensitized to the occult.”

Angel - Vampirism / "being Undead". Demonic Posession. Witchcraft.
Firefly/Serenity - utter loss of Faith in God as the driving force in one's life.

Quote from Touchstonemag.com, a Christian Archive.
Neopagan Attitudes

Witches and neopagans themselves have found it impossible to agree on definitions of witchcraft and neopaganism, but nevertheless claim to intuitively recognize those who worship the way they do. Therefore, instead of trying to define these movements by their doctrines or practices, Alexander cites their common attitudes.

These attitudes begin with the rejection of established society and include:

• Rejection of Christian monotheism in favor of the animistic, polytheistic, or pantheistic powers believed to be available “for enlightenment and occult empowerment”;
• Rejection of the concept of sin and of the need for salvation;
• Rejection of accountability to any higher power in favor of “an ethic of self-will tempered by mysticism”; and
• Inclination to goddess or nature worship, feminism, and environmentalism.

Sounds vaguely whedonesque, no?

and...

Buffy’s end-times confrontation between the forces of good and evil, for example, comes from the biblical account of the cosmic conflict between God and Satan over the spiritual fate of humanity that culminates in the victory of Christ over Antichrist in John’s Apocalypse. But Whedon’s version lacks any implication that the conflict is between God and Satan, and the biblical themes of temptation, fall, judgment, and redemption that gave meaning to the conflict have disappeared.

Likewise, the vampirism, demons, and demon possession that Whedon portrays in Buffy lack the concern for the redemption of the individual souls of the vampirized and the possessed that had given a Christian significance to previous popular fictions from Dracula to The Exorcist.

*For the record, I'm not a born-again Christian, nor am I atheist, agnostic, or anything else. I believe what I believe.
Just surprised by the statement that Christians like Joss Whedon's work.

"Have you ever been with a Warrior Woman?"

STILLSHINY

Thursday, August 10, 2006 4:09 PM

Not to hi-jack my own "sound-off" thread.

I think it's safe to say, most Christians who like Whedon's work, see beyond all that "stuff" that many people nit-pick apart.

For me....I appreciate the good storytelling & concepts of redemption & sacrifice, heroes & anti-heroes, people who just "do the right thing" and so on.

Joss is simply trying to tell a good....no.....a great story, and this is the Verse' he uses to tell it.

Now, back to my original thread.

Browncoat. Christian. Right here!

"We had ties that could not be broken, except by the passing of time. Like a rock. A broken time rock. And you're very special to me, my broken time rock people." - Nathan Fillion

Stillshiny's Shop - Original creator of the -isms series
http://www.spreadshirt.com/shop.php?sid=4728

http://www.myspace.com/robdhiii

WHIMSICALNBRAINPAN

Thursday, August 10, 2006 5:12 PM

You have another Christian browncoat here. I must admit that I'm not a very good one. I haven't been to church in a while and I need to find one but at least I know that God is forgiving. I plan to get my butt in a pew soon though.

"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." http://whimsicalnbrainpan.blogspot.com/

CYBERSNARK

Thursday, August 10, 2006 7:01 PM

Raised as a Christian.

Still practicing, but my own personal form of Christianity (not much of a follower, me).

Ironically enough, I find it was my dabbling in hard science, philosophy, witchcraft, eastern religions, mythology, and the occult (and pretty much everything that the Church establishment tries to suppress/discredit/destroy) that led to my current appreciation for the Church. Hell, I think Holy Blood, Holy Grail should be taught as part of the religious curriculum (and that The DaVinci Code should be taught as an example of IP theft, but that's a whole 'nuther debate).

There are just so many layers, both to the mass and to the faith itself --layers that I'd guess most laity (and probably even a few clergy) don't even realize: the Church is a ritual space, cousin to the sweat lodge or the shaman's circle. The singing of psalms and hymns descended from the shaman's drum that synchronizes the spirits of the ritual participants, awakening them to higher consciousness. The Host is a transformation of the wiccan athame, representing the male essence to the chalice/cauldron's female essence. The blessing of the Eucharist and the transubstantiation (bread & wine into body and blood) draws on the principles of sympathetic magic. Holy Water (which should have salt in it) is a spiritual disruptor, and using it to make the sign of the cross is a purification before the ritual (which is why I refuse to dip my finger and make the sign when leaving church --it defeats the purpose, messing up the spiritual "charging" the mass ritual just established). . .

And that duel between Moses and the Pharaoh's sorcerers, with the staffs turning into serpents --I could fuel a whole research paper on the symbolic meaning of that sequence!

In general, my only problem with the Church is with the Establishment. I'm too much of a non-conformist to accept Obedience as a cardinal virtue. Can't imagine that any God worth following would prefer Hir followers to be willfully ignorant (honest ignorance, I can stomache, but willfully avoiding learning? I think that's a sin).

Officially, there are things humans are not capable of comprehending, and so it's a "sin" for us to try. I don't hold to that. I think our minds (and specifically, our imaginations) are the most critical aspects of our existence. I don't think there is anything we can't comprehend. Up to and including the mind of God. I think it's our responsibility to confront and learn from the things that most offend us. (Can you tell I grew up watching Star Trek? )

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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

CIRHSEIN

Thursday, August 10, 2006 7:10 PM

I'm a devout Christian and a fanatical Browncoat. I've never watched much Buffy, and I've never seen Angel, so I can't speak to those shows, but it was, in fact, the religious elements of "Firefly" that initially intrigued me.

I know that Joss is an atheist, and of course we'll never know where he was going with the religious themes in the show, but I find it interesting that one of our first images of Mal is an expression of his faith. His life after the battle of Serenity Valley seems to be a reaction against the faith that let him down, and, of course, if he's reacting against it, that's only because he still feels it.

Shepherd Book was set up as one of the most interesting and complex characters on the show, and I find it both inexplicable and sad that Joss elected to waste him (both literally and figuratively) in the BDM.

At any rate, I've always been drawn to fiction that has spiritual themes and subtexts, and sci-fi is an excellent genre in which to explore those ideas without being preachy.

:)

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