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GOP: God's Own Party?
As Christians across the world prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, it's a fitting moment to contemplate the mountain of moral, and mortal, hypocrisy that is our Christianized Republican Party.There's nothing new, of course, about the Christianization of the GOP. Seven years ago, when debating Al Gore, then-candidate George W. Bush was asked to identify his favorite philosopher and answered "Jesus." This year, however, the Christianization of the party reached new heights with Mitt Romney's declaration that he believed in Jesus as his savior, in an effort to stanch the flow of "values voters" to Mike Huckabee.
My concern isn't the rift that has opened between Republican political practice and the vision of the nation's Founders, who made very clear in the Constitution that there would be no religious test for officeholders in their enlightened new republic. Rather, it's the gap between the teachings of the Gospels and the preachings of the Gospel's Own Party that has widened past the point of absurdity, even as the ostensible Christianization of the party proceeds apace.
The policies of the president, for instance, can be defended in greater or (more frequently) lesser degree within a framework of worldly standards. But if Bush can conform his advocacy of preemptive war with Jesus's Sermon on the Mount admonition to turn the other cheek, he's a more creative theologian than we have given him credit for. Likewise his support of torture, which he highlighted again this month when he threatened to veto House-passed legislation that would explicitly ban waterboarding.
It's not just Bush whose catechism is a merry mix of torture and piety. Virtually the entire Republican House delegation opposed the ban on waterboarding. Among the Republican presidential candidates, only Huckabee and the not-very-religious John McCain have come out against torture, while only libertarian Ron Paul has questioned the doctrine of preemptive war.
But it's on their policies concerning immigrants where Republicans -- candidates and voters alike -- really run afoul of biblical writ. Not on immigration as such but on the treatment of immigrants who are already here. Consider: Christmas, after all, celebrates not just Jesus's birth but his family's flight from Herod's wrath into Egypt, a journey obviously undertaken without benefit of legal documentation.
The Bible isn't big on immigrant documentation. "Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him," Exodus says the Lord told Moses on Mount Sinai, "for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." Yet the distinctive cry coming from the Republican base this year isn't simply to control the flow of immigrants across our borders but to punish the undocumented immigrants already here, children and parents alike.
So Romney attacks Huckabee for holding immigrant children blameless when their parents brought them here without papers, and Huckabee defends himself by parading the endorsement of the Minuteman Project's Jim Gilchrist, whose group harasses day laborers far from the border.
The demand for a more regulated immigration policy comes from virtually all points on our political spectrum, but the push to persecute the immigrants already among us comes distinctly, though by no means entirely, from the same Republican right that protests its Christian faith at every turn.
We've seen this kind of Christianity before in America. It's more tribal than religious, and it surges at those times when our country is growing more diverse and economic opportunity is not abounding. At its height in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was chiefly the political expression of nativist Protestants upset by the growing ranks of Catholics in their midst.
It's difficult today to imagine KKKers thinking of their mission as Christian, but millions of them did.
Today's Republican values voters don't really conflate their rage with their faith. Lou Dobbs is a purely secular figure. But nativist bigotry is strongest in the Old Time Religion precincts of the Republican Party, and woe betide the Republican candidate who doesn't embrace it, as John McCain, to his credit and his political misfortune, can attest.
The most depressing thing about the Republican presidential race is that the party's rank and file require their candidates to grow meaner with each passing week. And now, inconveniently, inconsiderately, comes Christmas, a holiday that couldn't be better calibrated to expose the Republicans' rank, fetid hypocrisy.
Harold Meyerson is editor-at-large of American Prospect and the L.A. Weekly.
© 2007 Washington Post
83 Comments so far
Show AllThink you got the name incorrect. Should be more like the "GREEDY OLD PERVERT" party. Look at all the misdeeds considering pages and the "wide stance." That just about speaks for itself. Voters should not forget how this bunch of charlatans judged Clinton--he messed up a dress; his wife and daughter forgave him, so who are we to not forgive?! W and Deadeye have killed nearly 4,000 American soldiers, maimed thousands, and created PTSD that may lead to thousands of emotional and mental scars that cannot be "fixed." These men and women just have to live with it. Bu$h and Deadeye have NO experience managing the military (their records speak for themselves, too. It is totally hypocritical and disgusting to me. The W gang is interested in two things--lining their pockets and their cronies pockets and do not give a damn about the middle class Americans and how they are struggling month to month, just to get by. What can we say? The ABSOLUTE WORST administration in the history of this great country. It is a travesty and they need to be impeached and removed from office. ANYONE ELSE would already have been run out of DC on a rail. I pray that the old quote, "Be sure your sins will find you out," will come home to these old perverts, ALL of them.
That is an exellent post SALLY.
My 2 cents re neomonk/iwarrior position: I'm of the opinion that the left is quite a bit more secular than anyone cares to admit, and quite a bit less willing to see the blatant divide between fundamentalist and more spiritual Christian. They don't care, they don't want to care, and they certainly don't want to spend the time to find out. A Christian--any Christian--is guilty by association. (BTW, I'm not endorsing this belief, in case you're wondering, this is just my analysis.) To a certain extent, and I hope this doesn't offend--and I will say that this IS my view: You're suffering from a certain galloping Rodney King-itis. We're NOT just going to 'get along.' Pretty much the Left hates the Right and vise-versa. And the Left is quite as capable as the Right of reactionary hatred. Will this ever resolve, or are we destined for a kind of Bosnian balkanization? I don't know. It would be nice to think so, but I wouldn't count on it.
Indeed it does not TICONDEROGA.
But you also write, we don't know if Jesus existed or not?
Perhaps we don't know if Alexander The Great, or Cleopatra, or George Washingtton, or Christopher Columbus existed or not then either. History is history and history never lies. The people who re-write it may lie or corrupt it. Jesus existed and lived here for 33 years. What any may believe he was, or where he came from and why is the question. That has nothng to do with our politics however, Bill and I were just makng small talk.
Actually, the only 'important thing', is to read the article and not write any comments.
But then, it wouldn't be much fun.
No one really knows whether Jesus existed or not. No one really knows, if he did exist, what he actually said. People have argued about the above questions for a long, long time and they will be still arguing about them for a long time to come, providng war and global warming don't wipe out the human species.
So the only thing that's really important in discussions like this is whether or not religion has any place in politics. As far as I know, according to our Constitution, it does not.
Hi There Billy, good to hear from you again, and I do hope you have a wonderful Christmas and your family is home for the holidays.
I don't care if you have a different opinion of Jesus. I prefer to go by the ancient writings, those written before his time and the writings about his life on Earth published in the various Bibles. Those writings have all been confirmed again by scrolls discovered in the 70s and an ancient book written about the life of King Soloman. That book and some others were ignored by the guys who re-wrote the King James Bible versions of the old Testiment.
We don't have any written records of mankind who lived on this planet prior to Genesis. Of course man and the gals were here LONG before the Garden of Eden story. The Bible's Old Testiment is often flawed by re-writes and is contradictory to the original historical accounts written in the Greek script. There are Bibles available with the corrected Greek translations.
The man named Jesus of Nazarath, fulfilled every single pre-written scripture, from the moment he was concieved until he left this planet. It would have been impossible for any to have faked those ancient writings. The ancient scrolls that have been discovered in the past hundred years, confirm those other ancient writing that were previously available. Jesus was the son of God. ____ Gee, I wrote the word 'ancient' a lot there. Well, they were very old tomes.
Now, my personal belief is, God is real, he's alive and he rules a society that is so far advanced in science and technology, that we cannot comprehend it. I believe as the Bible states, there was a great war in heaven, it is now in a five thousand year truce.
I believe heaven is the universe and there are many water planets like Earth where humanity lives. Except they don't screw up the atmosphere and oceans on their planets, which Jesus referred to as Mansions. "In my fathers house, are many mansions, if it were not so, I would not have told you."
I believe they have the medical secrets of eternal life and of having far more wisdom than we now have. I believe we originally came from those tribes of humanity and we are the offspring of the ones who were cast out of certain areas of the universe and we are of the seed of the leader and his third of humanity of the dark side, or, Lucifer and his folowers if you will.
When we die, our spirits do NOT die and we may have lived a life where we can return home, or lived one where we must stay here to be born again, and again, until we run out of chances to live a decent life and return home.
I won't go much further with what I believe, for it is not important. Except to say, that Jesus was sent here as a baby, who was NOT conceived in Mary's womb, by the seed of anyone here on Earth. He came to teach us how to return home when the time comes and he made it easy for us. Even one of the thieves who was crucified with him, was allowed to return home that day. All the man did was ask, and he believed, he had the faith that Jesus was the Son of Man.___ Simple. It pisses Satan off, because he wants us to be here to continue the Universal War when the final days begin. No one except God knows when that will be.
Religion? __ These damn priests and preachers in the world, are by and large a bunch of no good swine and crooked as a sidewinder, slithering across the hot sand and they are just as dangerous. Beware of them, you will know them by their deeds. And Billy, anyone can write a book. Them 'ancient' writings are hard to argue, too many confirmed written sources.
Finally, I believe religion and politics do NOT mix and should not be mixed, and that's what this here article is all about.
Have a good year too Bill and look for a decent job.__ Nite. ~"Deacon" Kem~
Shawn, though my post was not directed specifically at you, I greatly appreciate the time and effort you take to make your position (a strong one, in my opinion, and one I concur with) clear. I have NO PROBLEM with people pointing out hypocrisy or even confronting groups with regressive/dangerous goals, I get irritated when I get lumped in with the dangerous ones because we (nominally) share some trait.
Your explanation basically discounts you completely from the group my post was directed at though, please keep on confronting hypocrisies and injustices no matter what banner the proprietors wave while committing them.
Under the Biblical law of Moses (Leviticus), each fiftieth year is to be celebrated as a jubilee year, and at this season , all debts are to be erased, the land returned to its former owners, the slaves set free, etc.. Jesus H. Christ himself said that he did not come to replace the law of Moses but to fulfill it. Huckabee, Bush, Romney et al. are heretical stooges who do not celebrate jubilee and worship only the golden calf. Their bodies must be burned alive and their unclean ashes then buried in a damp pit so that the smoke does not offend the nostrils of Jehovah, and wild animals must be sent to devour their children.
Could someone tell me how an "evangelical" is different from a non-evangelical Christian?
Is one better than the other?
Thank You.
I sense a Rovian linguistic cesspool/void w/ olfactory echoes of "Neo-Con" & "Al Queda In Mesopatamia" ringing.
More WMD, Words of Mass Distraction.
satr9prodxns said Jesus would vote for Al Gore...
Not if the Lieberman had been Gore's running mate. Jesus knew a Pharasee when he saw one. Jesus would have voted for Ralph Nader.
kelmer___your idea, DNC=Devils Nurtured Company Good
How about DNC=Devils Neutered Clowns
proaltenergy___Jesus has not been in his grave for 2000 years so will not be rolling over in it. However, if he is witnessing our fiasco in this country using his name, you are correct, he is thinking THE HELL WITH THOSE PROPLE. Jesus did not mince words about the hyocrite scribes and pharisees and we have a nice new crop of them now.
Neomonk, I understand your anger at the condemnation of believers in some of the above posts. I am NOT trying to condemn Christians because they are Christians and that was not the intent of my post, rather I am condemning those who call themselves Christians; those who force their beliefs down the throats of everyone they come in contact with and hate anyone who believes different than they do. I am a believer in the teachings of Christ myself, however, I live in the heart of the Bible Belt and there are a lot of folks around who are exactly like those that I just described. These people (unfortunately the majority of those who call themselves Christians, at least around here) support absolutely everything the Bu$h Administration does, including torture and the illegal invasion of Iraq. I don't consider that to be terribly Christ like and see these people as mindless followers of Bu$h simply because he calls himself a Christian. These are the type of people described in Bob Altemeyer's book as Right Wing Authoritarians. If my previous post offended you, please accept my apology. My intent was not to "bash" Christians!
Merry Christmas to all!!!
There was a great article here on Common Dreams on Dec. 16, 2004 entitled Jesus & Alinksy, which builds an excellent case for Jesus as a political persona. NOT as a politician, but as political...I recommend it. ...It broadened my perspective and gave great food for thought...
To all the Ron Paul enthusiasts that had the audacity to compare him to Dennis Kucinich. Have you read the latest?
Ron Paul doesn't believe in evolution. "I think it's a theory—theory of evolution—and I don't accept it."
Now that he's revealed himself to be a creationist, I wonder how many of those enthusiasts are eating crow?
"Paul hasn't been hiding his religious convictions. He wrote back in 2003 that the "secular Left" has been waging a war on religion and Christmas and that "[t]he notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers."'
Watch the video on Truthdig.
So, I guess you're all going to have to come over to Kucinich now that Paul has revealed himself to be part of the Christian Taliban.
God is dead. Let the GOP follow suit.
For those not used to using their imagination, it may be hard to see the democrats as fetid and hypocritcal as republicans. But the corporate whores all share the same lap. There will be no change prior to their mass extermination. How that happens will require your imagination.
Well if the GOP is God's own party I guess that makes the DNC the Devil's Nurtured Company.
Harold Meyerson: "As Christians across the world prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus..." (AND spend money they don't have to express "love" one day out of the year on a Pagan holiday when love can be free ALL the time...)
Jared Prole: If only...
Separation of Church and State. Separation of Church and State.
Separation of Church and State. Separation of Church and State.
"Religion" has ABSOLUTELY NO BIZNESS in ANYTHING politic! NONE! PERIOD! My bullshit detector goes to the extreme reading when a politician even broaches the subject. The Constitution purports freedom of religion--a PERSONAL choice to be shared with those of like mind or alone--NOT to be used as a credential to a politician's "goodness" or "grace". Puh-leeze!
.Keep the Government out of Religion
And...
Keep Religion OUT OF Government!!!!
.
Which Republican fascist pro-torture Constitution trampling war profiteering criminal would Jesus vote for?
I often wonder about these Christian Republicans. This party is responsible for so much hatred and destruction in the world. It is the shield that the most astute criminals in the world hide behind (that and the flag). The Republicans have turned politics into an act of faith. It is truly a political party for the very stupid. No thinking is required, in fact, it is frowned upon. Truly the antitheses of the definition of "liberal." Sad. And there are so many of these dark followers in power under the guise of Christianity that I often wonder how many Republicans actually believe in the sheer ugliness, meanness and hatred that being a Republican represents in todays world to anybody with a mind and everybody outside of the U.S. It's just very sad about the Christian religion because Jesus' words held power, were brave and good beyond measure and equally difficult to follow no matter which political party you belong to. These "Christians" have connected their religion to their pockets and a vast majority of Republicans do not realize it, I think. They just get their philosophy pills in the words of the snake oil salesmen of the day: Limbaugh, Hannity and their ilk. I truly think that Jesus would be ashamed of these Republicans if HIs return happened today. According to their own religion, Christians should be very wary of this demon that has seduced it. Sad.
Jesus was not a Republican, or a Democrat, or a anything political. He was born in August or September. But it don't snow in those months and 'Christmas' need lots of snow and cold weather, so people will purchase warm coats, gloves, funny looking hats and sweaters for gifts.
This has always been a genocidal Aryan Xrstian slave empire with human blood dripping from its maw - just ask Black people or any Indigenous human. Xrstianity is the the religion of the Slave Master. Xrstianity is the religion of Genocide. Always. Plastic Jesus is a "beard", a cover for the psychotic blood drinking theology that lies just below a candy-covered surface. That's why white Americans love it so much. Dignified god-fearing citizen on top, blood drinking psychotic child raper underneath - our Pillars of Society. Go watch Peter O'Toole's "Ruling Class" again.
Totally fitting that the GOP would worship a re-tread flat-earth genocidal blood god stolen from a genocidal ME tribe of flat-earth killer nomads called the Habiru. Dems in this like other areas just want to play "me too, me more, me better".
Much mo betta, Xrstianity and all the rest of the Religions of the Book should drop into a vast chasm and disappear from human life forever, soonest.
Pieces of 8.
Luckylefty-are you a troll?
It's almost funny anymore. You're a gross cariciature of a liberal.
"That's why white Americans love it so much. Dignified god-fearing citizen on top, blood drinking psychotic child raper underneath -"
Ok, isn't that what the right-wingers basically think of Muslims? How is your obvious hatred and contempt better than theirs? I mean, they try to justify it also. You can justify hatred towards any group if you only look at the underbelly.
Nannie-I've been saying that. But too many people just want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
As far as the GOP (I hate that term. What the hell is so 'grand' about them?) goes, I think most of the ones thumping their Bibles are just pandering in order to get votes. They use Christianity as a tool. I don't for a minute believe that those bastards are truly devout.
You can paint all Christians as wild-eyed beasts all you want to. Just bear in mind that people on the Right do the same to Muslims. It's all wrong. But unfortunately, it seems anymore that people define their politics by who and what they hate, not in terms of how best to solve the world's problems.
But such is the subculture of the Left. It's all about who you hate I guess. Who do you wanna piss of? Who's sensibilities must we pour acid on? Most other people don't seem to want to play the game, and then we wonder why the masses are generally disinterested in politics, despite the fact that most (whether we will acknowledge it or nor) hold progressive views.
They don't think it matters. I mean, whether you look leftward or rightward, there's always someone who holds contempt and disdain for who and what you are. They get pushed to one side and screwed by the other. And God Forbid they stand in the middle. WHAM!!!! Look out for that truck.
God's Own Party? The Neo-Cons only worship gold and an ancient tribal war god. Both our Republicans and Christians have been infected with this Neo-Con virus. Greed is one of the Deadly Sins because pigs must be killed to be cured.
Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple. But under the republicans, the money changers now run the temple.
I like that who would Jesus vote for.... who would Jesus torture? who would Jesus kill? who would Jesus lie to? who would Jesus bomb? who would Jesus make poor? who would Jesus steal from?????
Jesus must be rolling over in his grave at the GOP and its minions....
http://geocities.com/vonchloride/
http://infowars.com/videos.html#bg
jesus would vote for al gore
I'd like to think Jesus would waltz into the White House ala Roddy Piper in "They Live," chewin' bubblegum and kickin' ass.
if you look at history you will see that christians have been, almost from their very beginning, bloodthirsty tyrants. nothing's changed.
And if you look even closer at history, you'll find bloodthirsty tyrants in all religions and cultures.
I haven't known any Christian that was a bloodthirsty tyrant. Just as I have I never known a Jew who was money-grubbing or a Muslim who wanted to behead me if I didn't convert.
Stop it.
stuuupid humans
Based on recent events, it would appear Christians also believe insurance co profits are more important than the health of all children, and that overt class warfare is very Jesus-like, and that the collateral murder of a million or so innocent Iraqis was what God was talking about when he stopped by the White House for a chit chat with our Loonitary Decider.
And isn't there something about not worshiping false idols with white beards wearing a silly red outfit?
No Billy, the rulers and the priests of that time construed Jesus as political. He was not a politician, he was a healer, a teacher and the spokesman for humanity to become decent. King Herrod found no fault with him.
His words,"Render unto Ceasear what is Ceasears', render unto God what is Gods'."
Anyway, he or God ain't giving Bush advice.
I see my speling is up to it's usual standards.
BTW how is God's only son a she Billy?
Bill, ha ha ha... that's great...
only how can you put Corrie ten Boom and Hitler in the same sentence? she was a devout lady with unbelievable strength of character and faith... while Hitler was a homicidal maniac/delusions of grandeur... like someone else we all know... psycos stick together...
yes, the god that the GOP worships, which god is that, Jesus said something like many will come in my name... but they ain't all real and we would know real Christians by their fruits... love, kindness, peace... no one in the GOP qualifies ...
goper's are the no clueer's.
CHRISTMAS OBSERVANCES 2007
A child was born and they named him Jesus; he was born from a virgin mother. Why? To show the world what could be done by mankind and had been done before. Don't believe? Hey, truth is truth whether we believe or not. We are all sons and daughters of the one God but, I believe, that he was born this way to show that he was a son that had advanced to a level to where he could do this. Mother Mary was in on the deal too but maybe, just maybe, she was not quite as advanced as he.
When did he become the Christ? No Christ no Christmas just some, maybe, pagan holiday. My thoughts? He started as child of 12 when he started at the temple in Jerusalem when he said "he had to be about his fathers business", then from around that time until he is 30 or so, I don't know exactly when, he gets baptized by John, as a symbolic gesture and then starts his ministry. The time from 12 to 30 he traveled to, at least, India, Persia, Tibet and maybe some other places. There are rumors that he might have visited the Americas; nothing concrete. Most would say he went to strictly learn but I think that he went to prove to other faiths and peoples that he was this exalted soul out to do the One God's business for all of humanity.
Words, ah, the words of the Christ used by so many, the good, the bad, the I have no clue's and so many use the words without the deeds and so make the words like so many empty vessels. To show just one example: When he said that the poor would always be with us and some people and governments think that, hey, he said it so should it be. What is wrong with this picture? Should we not take this as a slap in the face of all humankind that we have no clue on what and how things are supposed to be? This is just a recent thought of mine and it bears repeating that words without deeds is emptiness.
We get many chances to do what's right by enlightenment by light bulb or reincarnation and that is what he meant when he said we must be born again and when he said that only through him would we be good enough. That is the ultimate goal: to be like him and that is what he meant. Now I come to the finish of this Christmas observances. I'm not even close and all I want for Christmas is the courage and will to do what is right and just.
With love and best wishes for a Merry Christmas, Sandy and Tony 12/22/07
More blood has been spilled in the name of god then all other reasons combined! How can so many seemingly rational people still buy in to that intelligent design crap? If you need to believe in some fairy tale to feel all warm and fuzzy inside, fine. And if you need to ignore reality and choose to buy into some bull about the earth being created in a week five thousand years ago, so be it. But please don't elect onther so called GOD FEARING fool as my president! I need a leader who will listen and is willing to do the people's work, not that of his imaginary friend!
Billy are you sober? You always make good sense, except for nuclear power issues. Today you are writing nonsense. Jesus was God's only son, he came here to explain to us how to prevent going to hell.
He was not a politician, the "Phar-as-ees" claimed that. How the hell did we get into this discussion anyway?
Religion has no place in politics and Bush has made it otherwise, and He don't take the word of God, unless Rove and Cheney are gods.
Further, Huckster beeeee is a water front pimp who thumps a Bible and sounds good to the ignorant.
"The Constitution purports freedom of religion–a PERSONAL choice to be shared with those of like mind or alone–NOT to be used as a credential to a politician's "goodness" or "grace". Puh-leeze!"
Celebrity, you hit the nail on the head! The republicans obviously are using Christianity as a tool for gathering votes (Karl Rove and Dumbya were overheard in the oval office by a reporter mocking evangelicals.) There are a lot of conservative evangelical Christians in this country, especially in the southern Bible Belt which stretches from Texas to Florida, meaning a lot of potential votes. The evalgelicals will blindly vote for most any candidate who present themself as an evangelical Christian. Further, once the candidate claiming to be an evangelical is elected, many of these same people claiming to be devout followers of Christ will follow the elected official and support their actions and policies, no matter how amoral those actions may be. There is a name for these folks...Right Wing Authoritarians. They are the followers aka sheeple. There is a good online book (free) by Robert Altemeyer (John Dean used much of his infomation in his book "Conservatives Without a Conscience" entitled "The Authoritarians" which describes the reasoning behind the thoughts of these folks. Very interesting indeed!
Personally, I have no quarrel with true followers of Christ. They would be those who keep their beliefs to themselves and truly care for others. In other words they try to be like Christ in their behavior. Unfortunately, the Christian Right, those who incorporate religion with government care about themselves, not the general public.
Oh. one more thing...the GOP doesn't stand for "The Grand Old Party", but rather "Greedy Old Pigs."
If the above link to the online book "The Authoritarians" doesn't work the link is : http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey.
Yeah, those Muslim bastards are ruining everything for us right-thinking folk. WE KNOW the TRUTH, and everything they have ever done has turned sour in their incompetent hands. Nothing good has ever come out of.......
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought this was freerepublic... I walked into the wrong ignorant, prejudiced, uninformative, based-on-flawed-opinion three-minute hate again. Oops, silly me, it's the Christians who are universally evil here.
I'll try and keep my blind, raging prejudices sorted out next time.
-----end sarcasm-----
I'm a monotheist who believes that there may also be some polytheistic mechanic to the universe.
*shrugs* If you think I'm some kind of genocidal bloodthirsty monster then you're either new here or too dumb to offer any real contribution.
If you think I'm some kind of gullible moron who will fall for whatever the people 'above' me in social stature tell me, you're lying to yourself and falling for what someone 'above' you in social stature is telling you.
If you think that I've been told what to believe by my parents (or some other authority) and accept it uncritically, you could be forgiven (that actually -IS- a common trait of religious people) but would be incorrect. My faith is my own and only my own, based on observation and hypothesis. I've not been force fed anything.
If you think I'm just some stupid schmuck or crazy psychotic, then say so. Don't be offended though when I take it personally, ask for evidence of such outrageous and unfounded foolishness and finally make you look highly uninformed while proving your unwise assertation false.
Your arrogance exceeds that of the 'christian' right, and that my friends is impressive. Just because you're right about many things (and most of you are) doesn't make you infallible, and certainly doesn't put you in any position of superiority over me (and my fellow believers, but I can only speak for myself). The constant insinuation that I'm somehow more foolish than you, more gullible than you or just outright stupid PISSES ME OFF frankly. You're supposed to be the progressives, the thinkers, not the reactionary fools who don't bother with such petty things as 'understanding', 'empathy', and Science-forbid 'debate'.
Like iwarrior said earlier, stop it.
You're making progressives look like reactionaries while adding more imaginary fuel to the 'red vs blue' stupidity we have going on in this country.
neomunk sez...
"You're making progressives look like reactionaries while adding more imaginary fuel to the 'red vs blue' stupidity we have going on in this country."
Yep. That's one reason why I stopped coming here for a while. We wonder why so many working and poor people are left with bad tastes in their mouths They think liberals are all like some of the people posting here.
I'd love to see some of these Christianity basher walk into a church and tell all the people there that they're stupid and weak-minded. Would they tell Cornell West that? Would they have told MLK that?
I think the Christian Republicans want to be left alone.
They don't want condemnation. They just vote for people, it's those other people that steal money.
They certainly don't want a Jeremiad. They get hellfire at church, and they don't believe liberals. When they want a Jeremiad they can read the book of Jeremiah, which was happily about a tiny kingdom long ago and far away.
They want prosperity. Who can blame them. They want the bad people elsewhere to suffer, because it seems just to them.
The very last thing they want is someone to preach to them that their world is crumbling right now, even if it is. Things are right in the world and they've got their own castles, well, the ones that didn't have staggering medical bills or lose their jobs and such.
No, there's something worse to hear. The very very last thing they want to hear is that they are responsible in any way. Sure, their preacher says they're responsible but he's supposed to say that. He doesn't mean it.
And then there's the unbearable thing to hear. Their Bible says that God told Jonah to get to work and he ran the other way, and it didn't work. The unbearable thing is a combination of "our world is falling apart, I'm really responsible and, and, -- God says, I can't sit still for much longer, and when God speaks, I've got a problem."
Personally I think God asks 100 people to do some real work, and 1 responds, usually the bottom of the barrel, the clown you would least likely see do anything.
What is it about Protestantism that leads it to produce the most hateful, violent and ignorant politicians in our history? Is there something deep in the "protestant ethic" that caters to greed, self-righteousness and sadism? Republican Protestant politicians support a capitalist system that literally thrives on a poverty-stricken underclass, while the rich live in excess luxury. Is this really in their bible? They support torture out of a paranoid fear of terror--which is really just blowback from all their bad foreign policies. And they support violence against women while couching it in some convoluted and hypocritical notion of "sanctity of life." Tell that to the Iraqis.
Christmas has it's roots in pagan holiday's of the time. It was usurped like all the other holiday's in the religious calender. Because ancient people did not want to entirely give up their pagan ways. So the early Christian father's simply adopted their own version of the holiday to entice people to follow them. So the Christmas that is celebrated round the world as a religious symbol has it's own tawdry beginnings. Personally, my family and I celebrate 'Winter Solstice'! Because all of us are growing weary of all the bigotry in Christmas and those self-righteous Christian's who celebrate it. I suspect most American's could care less about the religious significance of Christmas. Only a few religious fanatic's get upset over the secularism of the holiday.
Kem, you have got to be kidding! George Washington and Christopher Columbus compared to the so called "SON OF GOD"? There is undisputable and bullet proof documented evidence that George and Chistopher exsited. What do you have to support that load of crap? Let me guess, the Bible, right? Sorry, it's a fairy tale just like Bush's intelligence on WMD'S. Do you honestly believe the earth was created in less than a week five thousand years ago?
Bush has poured billions of tax dollars into the Faith Based Initiative program which caters to the evangelical preachers. The GOP knows if you buy the souls of the leaders, the flock will follow. Amen.
No I don't belive that at all IMAGINEUSA, guess you missed some of my posts. I believe there were humans living here for millions of years. BTW, the written history of Christ's time here on Earth is well documented, bullet proof evidence in many history book, long before any Bible was printed. So if you or any others don't believe those history books, you may a well not believe any history books.
Anyway, religion does not belong in politics.
All of this BS is the reason that I became a Unitarian Universalist. I don't need any church telling me what to believe when I walk through the door, or to check my brain at the door, either. I don't need anyone forcing me to believe in a God that I'm never quite sure exists or to tell me that I must believe that Jesus is my own personal saviour. I don't need anyone telling me that the Bible is the literal truth and that every word is "the word of God" when I know darn well that it was written by fallible men centuries after Jesus died and is thus questionable in its authority.
I also don't believe in any kind of religious test to hold public office, because the Founding Fathers made sure that such a thing would not be required. They also wrote into the Constitution the separation of church and state, thus assuring that there would be no established religion in this country and that we would be a place of religious tolerance that allowed people to worship as they pleased.
Faith is, and should be, and MUST be a private affair. It's nobody's business what I believe unless I chose to tell them. I revile anyone who openly demands conversion of the masses to their way of thinking. And it seems to me that this is the very thing going on in this country today - an attempt to mass convert us to some warped version of Christianity that worships the almighty dollar, the cruel treatment of "the infidel" (non-Christians, immigrants) and ignores outright the needs of those less fortunate than themselves, the very opposite of what Christianity was meant to be in the first place.
Christianity has been warped beyond any recognizable form by a small, vocal and powerful minority who want to use it as a control mechanism. And while they have so far succeeded in their objective (talking a page right out of the playbook of the extremist Islamists), they haven't managed to get all of us. There are still some of us free thinkers who remember what the grey matter between the ears is supposed to be used for, and that's for thinking and using reason to work to defeat those who would wish otherwise.
I'm not one of those raving anti-Christian types who demands that there be no religious symbols whatsoever in any form, anywhere. I well remember manger scenes at Christmas time out in public areas and thought they were really nice, and I frankly kind of miss things like that. There are so few Christmas lights up in our downtown that they may as well not have bothered at all to put them up this year. I miss the lavish displays they used to have when I was a child. Maybe the politically correct have demanded this reduction in lights, but it somehow diminishes the whole spirit of Christmas if you ask me.
But I will not stand idly by as open declarations of one's religiosity become a defacto test of one's worthiness to hold public office. Some of our Founding Fathers were, in fact, Unitarians, who went on to become some of our greatest Presidents. They did not stand up in the public pulpit and declare their unswerving faith in God and Christ in order to win votes. They didn't need to, and nor should anyone else have to do so in order to win public office. What these people have done is, in fact, to make a complete and total sham of anything that even vaguely resembles Christianity.
And it's a shame that they've been allowed to get away with it thus far without so much as a peep from more moderate Christians about the corruption of their faith. When will the brave stand up and demand "ENOUGH!" and put a stop to this ugly bastardization of Christianity?