I know this is a bizzare and almost blasphemous picture. Bear with me while I explain.
I believe those with the eye-popping signs are followers of Fred Phelps, an extremist christian. These groups look up events where large amounts of people will be present, then set up these signs and claim that the apocalypse will come, that everyone must repent, that we are all sinners and must embrace Jesus and God.
With the exception that they single out many minorities, including gays, lesbians, jewish followers, islams, mormons, and those of us who are "lazy" and "waste our time with foolishness of entertainment". They targeted the anime convention because we supposedly waste our time in pointless crap when we should be spending our time repenting and condemming those that are "not worthy of the Lord's forgiveness".
I know this because of a play I did in high school, "The Laramie Project", and because these very protesters came to my school last semester.
At some point, a random cosplayer dressed as Jesus hopped up onto the pedestal behind the protesters. He was by no means supporting these people.
Attendants of the convention called out to him, asking if he accepts and forgives. "Jesus" replied with "I love all, forgive all, and accept all. I love you all!"
I'm sure a few people were offended, but the words of the protesters hurt a lot. Having heard them myself, it saddens me that someone thinks condemming with such interpretations and words actually THINK they themselves will fall into the Lord's grace.
And it offends me when they condemn others with different beliefs.
The protesters left about an hour or two after this. It was by far an interesting highlight of the convention.
"Jesus"=??
Taken at FanimeCon 2008
`ChewedKandi has certainly gone out of her way to keep the vector community on the right path. Always making sure that her talents are infinitely scalable, Sharon has put her bezier curves to excellent use, and firmly anchored herself as an inspirational leader. We're absolutely delighted to bestow the Deviousness Award for June 2013 to `ChewedKandi. Congratulations, Sharon! Read More
Sta.sh
after reading your description it sounds like the guy cos-playing as Jesus had it right Jesus loves all even gays, lesbians atheists ect. ect.
I'm a christian, a brony
forgive my rant but I have one last point to make.
it is my philosophy that god reveals stuff to us through art and media despite the original creators intention. the only way I can describe it is its like when your watching sponge bob or the like (just an example) and something they say or do sparks a huge or minor revelation.
any who thank you for taking this photo I wish these crazys didn't exist much like the west burro baptist cult.
and I hope every pony has a great life
Fucking lol! Someone should tell them the same thing.
Myself personally, I am a Christian woman, but at the same point, I cosplay and watch anime to the extent that its about the only thing I watch online...and I vary on what I watch but at the same point I don't condemn it all...but from what that Group in the shot is doing, I know it is said to go out and and make disciples of the masses, but at the same token...They were just looking for a reason to start up problems because they knew they could probably get away with it because that's just how they are
The thing about this group of people is that they weren't directly targeting anime. They just try to find events where large amounts of people gather to show off.
But boy did they anger so many people. SO many Christian congoers yelled back at the protesters. So many of my friends are religions, yet are huge anime and gaming freaks XD
XDD Just think how many Cosplayers would've been like, "HEY MOM...Oh wait! CRAP! *run and hide*"
I can fully understand that many Anime fans are Christian or of some religion; when I saw the footage from that little incident it made me go, "...And God said you should do this? Go and ruin something that was fun for people to promote and ram down peoples throats something that you are RADICALLY promoting?! You make the rest of us Christians look bad!"
bah... I hate those kind of people who "push" things like these to others.... People have the right to believe what they want to believe.
lol rant... sorry..
Nah, it's okay to rant (you're not the only one who has on this photo lol).
Again, I agree with you. I've had past encounters with people like this and... I just get more and more irritated at the cruel things they say and how they twist the words of the bible >.<
In the end... they might be the ones who will end up being punished eternaly... XD