I’ve been sort of tapped for time today, so not much on the blogging front. But I will give you this post by Jill about how male gynecologists are being targeted for murder by religious extremists in Iraq. Fascinating, isn’t it, that two entirely separate patriarchal religious nuts—some Christian, some Muslim—have independently come to the same conclusion to target for death or at least punishment doctors who exist under the concept that women deserve health care and rights? Granted, their reasoning is a bit different. The Muslim nuts argue that it’s slutty to have women have their bodies and especially genitals seen by male doctors, and the Christian nuts are much more anxious about the slutty behavior preceding the abortion. But in both cases, doctors are treated like traitors to the patriarchy, because they’re viewed as lightening the load of shame and sex-phobia on women.
It’s almost like the excuses about female modesty and saving “babies” are self-serving justifications for otherwise unvarnished misogyny or something.
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Here is what I wrote about the war on Iraqi women:
http://aikenareaprogressive.blogspot.com/2007/11/three-countries-twenty-five-years-apart.html
or something
Reading this posting on the Transgender Day of Remembrance makes me see another connection, since this day is, in part, to remember trans people who have died due to medical neglect. Attacking medical care as a means of hatred, power, and control is so horrifying.
The notion of gender superiority is one of the deadliest ideas in the world.
The fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims hate each other precisely because they have so much in common. They compete to bring to their ranks the most insane, sociopathic, and misogynistic elements of humanity. They’re pretty much like Coke and Pepsi.
This is in competition for the “Patriarchy Hurts Men Too” extreme division. But then, all the deaths in Iraq seem to be connected to W’s desire to prove his wang, so Patriarchy is killing loads of people.
Just to make this even crazier, gyn has historically been a field populated in significant part by men with really nasty attitudes toward women, ranging from the guys who just wanted to manipulate women’s naughty bits with bizarre homemade instrruments to the ones who proudly announced their victory over the womb with every unnecessary hysterectomy they conned a patient into performing.
So it’s like somebody targeting cops for being too nice to suspects.
350 trash collectors killed in Baghdad in 2006.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=130079
They too must be violating some religious tenet.
This reminds me of the vicious Catch-22 inflicted on Afghani women by the Taliban:
They were not allowed to see male doctors, because that was “immodest”.
Women were not allowed to become doctors, because that would be “uppity”.
So, yeah, they just get to die. Serves the bitches right, I guess. You’d think that the male owners would at least give a damn about their ripened sperm, but not if it meant actually treating women as good as cattle.
Sickening.
its almost too much to fathom..this pathological hatred & misogyny. are these people who do these things the 2% of sociopaths in any population, or is this a component of most men & only the sociopaths give action to it?
also want to say, that anti-spam device is f#cked up. you cant make out the numbers sometimes –it’s a crapshoot.
i wish this blog would morph into more of a forum format, too, so you can post comments on older topics.
There is nothing beautiful, elevated or even slightly erotic in the patriarchal hatred of women.
Fascinating, isn’t it, that two entirely separate patriarchal religious nuts—some Christian, some Muslim—have independently come to the same conclusion to target for death or at least punishment doctors who exist under the concept that women deserve health care and rights?
Fundamentalism is independent of a religious faith. It’s a variant of megalomania, not theology. Theology is just an excuse, replaceable by secular psychobabble or pseudoresearch.
It’s true that fundies of different stripes will hate each other, but that’s only because they’re all playing the same game: wanton powerlust over each other and wimmin’. Truly, though, they admire each other more than us: don’t you all recall when D’Souza actually praised Muslim fundamentalists for being such complete and thorough pieces of shite — just like their fundie bretheren here in the states?
One aspect of some religious worldviews is that it’s better to die than to sin because when you’re dead, you get to go to heaven. It doesn’t matter if women are dying because they aren’t getting medical care; it’s more important that they be pure and obey God’s laws, so they won’t go to Hell once they do die. An outspoken heretic is clearly a worse person than a murderer who kills innocents, because a murderer only damns himself, while a heretic just might trick other people into ending up in Hell alongside him.
I suspect that many people don’t know what it’s really like to take Hell seriously. If eating pork is going to send people to Hell, then it is morally right to use any level of force necessary to stop pork salesman - including lethal force - before they cause any more innocent people to become damned. Someone who really believes in the implications of Christianity or Islam is someone who is really fucking scary, because they’re capable of anything - including flying planes into buildings.
Ooo, I know! Let’s post on a totally unrelated topic to try and derail/minimize the thread! After all, we need something to talk about when we aren’t showing our bigotry towards atheists, right Arun?
This is what killed a lot of women under the Taliban. Women weren’t allowed to work, so no women doctors. Then male doctors weren’t allowed to touch their female patients, and had to rely on a male relative describing where the pain was. As a result, many women could not get treatment and died.
Some good news from New Jersey, a week or two ago, the pharmacy access bill was signed into law:
“The pharmacy access law requires pharmacies to fill prescriptions for in-stock drugs or devices without undue delay, despite the sincerely held moral, philosophical or religious beliefs of an individual pharmacist. Pharmacies employing pharmacists who object to filling prescriptions can accommodate the objection so long as the pharmacy ensures that customers receive their prescriptions, including birth control, at the pharmacy without undue delay.”
There are days when I have a deep and abiding rage and hatred towards all men. I try very hard not to act upon it, because I am married to one and mother to another. But when I read the truth in Zuzu’s comment This is what killed a lot of women under the Taliban. Women weren’t allowed to work, so no women doctors. Then male doctors weren’t allowed to touch their female patients, and had to rely on a male relative describing where the pain was. As a result, many women could not get treatment and died. I simply want to smash things.
Doug, why is it these folks always have a very selective concern for which sins they want to prevent? Alcohol is Haram under Islam; but the liquor stores are re-opening and the Mahdi army seems to have let off the enforcement. The violent enforcement always seems to be about (as Hugo Schwyzer and others call it) Pelvic Morality (that is, enforcing a bunch of rules on women’s sexuality that operate as a system of pervasive control over women) instead of dietary, work and alcohol prohibitions.
dorvl got here ahead of me — what are women to do if they can’t see male doctors, but women aren’t supposed to be doctors?
Re the extremism of fundamentalists, it’s fun for me to point out to extreme right-wing godtards that they sound just exactly like them thar “ragheads” they hate so much, what with their anti-gay, anti-abortion and general anti-freedom views. The look of uncomprehending shock is precious.
Yeah and these are the same fukwads who will not allow women to go to school to become doctors so that “their” women can be seen by a doctor, EVER!
the rise of more Taliban like thinking . . . good thing we’be done in Iraq isn’t it?
Public Service Warning: I’m in a foul mood today and it’s coming out in every comment on ever blog I inhabit. If you’re having a good day today, you might want to skip anything and everything you see my name on. I just left C&L
“Public Service Warning: I’m in a foul mood today and it’s coming out in every comment on ever blog I inhabit. If you’re having a good day today, you might want to skip anything and everything you see my name on.”
That’s okay. I’m in one of those moods too…
I suspect that many people don’t know what it’s really like to take Hell seriously. If eating pork is going to send people to Hell, then it is morally right to use any level of force necessary to stop pork salesman - including lethal force - before they cause any more innocent people to become damned. Someone who really believes in the implications of Christianity or Islam is someone who is really fucking scary, because they’re capable of anything - including flying planes into buildings.
By the same token, theists argue that athiests are completely immoral since they believe athiests have no arbiter of morals, then point to Communist China and Russia (among other places) to “prove” the point. Do recall that the entire point of Huxley’s Brave New World was that an ultra-secular society had decided that everyone was responsible for everyone else, and thus subservient to the group.
It seems bullshit is bullshit whether or not you involve god.
Trollbait like this absolutely fails to consider free will a good and that committing a wrong to prevent a potential wrong turns out to be — drum roll, please — a fucking wrong under many theistic, secular, or even code-of-the-playground systems. See also racial profiling (which, if used with any rational sense, would be employed exclusively against white people — and would have some measure of success, though it would still be evil).
Pulling the thread back from the derailment, it should be noted that the World Trade attackers were probably motivated not by God, but by greed. Their families were likely to receive huge payoffs for their work. At least one of them (Atta) led a highly secular lifestyle — alcohol, (white) stripper girlfriend, etc. And Bin Laden, though he invokes God as much as Our Resident Asshole, spends most of his time talking about oil and how the dogs — the Iranians — are taking what Is Rightfully
HisOurs.Why, it’s almost as if all the major players are using god as a cover to rape and murder! Boy, haven’t seen that before.
Fundies are usually one step removed from this. They believe their own bullshit, so they’re more likely to have some sort of code — though whether or not that code is ethical or just self-effacing self-sacrifice (refraining from a food to remain “pure”) depends upon the fundie, not the faith they bastardize. (Keep in mind a fundie could be based on a secular regime of thought; all you need is fanaticism and you’re good.) Practically, they’re equally dangerous. I couldn’t tell you whether a lying asshole or a fanatical asshole is worse — the former certainly use the latter.
When wingnuts claim that The Left didn’t say anything about women’s oppression under militant Islam prior to 9/11, the situation mentioned by zuzu immediately comes to mind. Pretty much the only place I heard about the treatment of women under the Taliban (and the Saudis, tribal governments in Waziristan, Muslim Brotherhood thugs in Egypt and elsewhere, etc., etc.) was in the left wing press with occasional mentions in center-left mainstream media. I actually read right wing media a fair amount, due to a personal pathology that makes me want to understand what other people are thinking. Treatment of women was rarely, if ever, mentioned prior to 9/11 and even then they tended to get it wrong, lumping Iran (where women have freedoms well beyond the minimal set in the Koran) with Taliban Afghanistan, and completely ignoring Saudi Arabia.
If these fukwads actually knew their shtuff then they’d know that eating pork is actually a minor thing because you are allowed to eat pork if nothing else is available. Likewise the same is true of a female seeing a male doctor, especially in emergencies.
assh@les each and everyone
so true togolosh. I had a wingnut troll post on my blog about wishing I had a cliterodectomy because I posted something that didn’t slam Islam and made Muslims out to be [gasp] humanbeings.
I folled said fukkker back to his/her/it’s blog and asked it when it found out about cliterodectomy and infibulation? When? Since 9-11? Because I had been working on and donating to cause to end it’s practise and to help the women who have been victims of it since 1985.
fukwads
its almost too much to fathom..this pathological hatred & misogyny. are these people who do these things the 2% of sociopaths in any population, or is this a component of most men & only the sociopaths give action to it?
Neither.
No One of Consequence:
Vide Objectivism.
I have, on more than one occasion, described Objectivism as a secular religion, and I’ve personally interacted with fanatical members thereof. They fetishize “reason” in the exact same ways that religious fundamentalists fetishize “faith,” and are just as incapable of handling dissent without having a total mental meltdown.
Dan, I never could even read Atlas Shrugged because a) Randians were so offensive and b) the book has a “she liked it” rape. Just couldn’t get through it. So, yeah, there’s a good example.
We had, in effect, a member of a religious fanatic cult at the head of our federal reserve, and several of them helping to shape our foreign policy. Our present state of affairs makes perfect sense.
Warren: “No, Ms. Bond, I expect you to die.”
Do you even understand “fundamental”? You call them ‘fundies’.
Being a fundamental Christian means to take your faith seriously. That you believe the Bible is the infallible word of God.
Same with the Muslims except with the Koran.
If a Christian does not have a fundamental belief in the Bible, then he/she is no Christian and might as well turn their back on the whole thing.
The people you rail against (fundies), I have my doubts. But it isn’t up to me if they are a Christian or not.
Now, What is a Christian? Well, Christian is defined as a follower of Jesus Christ. And if you are a fundamental Christian then you would believe that there is only one way to heaven, and that is through Jesus (I know you have heard this before). And that after Jesus has shown you forgiveness and mercy that Christians are to show the same to everyone else. I don’t see very much of that these days… Do you?
I don’t see much mercy or forgiveness from Christians in the media (are they media whores?)
None from Muslims
None from athiests
None from politicians - unless they are using it to get elected.
None from government
None from Nazis
None from Skin Heads
None from Homosexual activists
None from Womens groups
None from Bigots
None from anyone with a political agenda.
You will not get no forgiveness or mercy from humans. Unless maybe from a friend, and then sometimes not.
If you want forgiveness and mercy, turn to God. He is the only one offering it.
He offers it to all women and all men. No matter the sin or the number of sins. He is wanting you to say yes to him and be born again. It isn’t too late yet. But the too late part is quickly approaching.
Won’t you just consider it once and think long and hard with an open mind?
May God Bless.
I’m so glad that Lee Richards came by to help us understand that depriving women of humans rights is not important - but pointing out just how threatened christians are from all fronts is really important.
Lee wants all you feminists to shut down those blogs and become long-skirt wearing christians.
Please think of the christions. Won’t somebody PLEASE THINK OF THE CHRISTIANS!!!…
Being a fundamental Christian means to take your faith seriously. That you believe the Bible is the infallible word of God. […]
If a Christian does not have a fundamental belief in the Bible, then he/she is no Christian and might as well turn their back on the whole thing.
Hey, Lee?
Mark 16:17-18.
A demonstration, please.
You will not get no forgiveness or mercy from humans. Unless maybe from a friend, and then sometimes not.
You need new friends. Stop hanging out with assholes who hate the world and themselves so much that they need fairy tales to keep them going, and you’ll find a lot of genuine kindness and warmth from real human beings who live in the real world.
Lee wants all you feminists to shut down those blogs and become long-skirt wearing christians
I never said that.
I would never say that. People can wear what they want.
I just said humans don’t give much forgiveness, and they definetly don’t have mercy. But some people do.
Hey, Lee?
Mark 16:17-18.
A demonstration, please.
Uh, no… So I suppose you now just disproved something? You did nothing.
wow… gee what a list
I don’t see much mercy or forgiveness from Christians in the media (are they media whores?) * yup unless of course they run to Dobson after they’ve gone after a president for having an axtra martial affair while they were having one, and leaving their wife in her hospital bed fighting cancer
None from Muslims * well I’ve seen much forgiveness and mercy from Muslims
None from athiests * well I’ve seen much forgiveness and mercy from athiests
None from politicians - unless they are using it to get elected. * so we are talking about Republicans?
None from government * yeah, wonder if I Scooter Libby would agree.
None from Nazis * self apparent observation
None from Skin Heads * self apparent observation
None from Homosexual activists * well I’ve seen much forgiveness and mercy from Homosexual activists
None from Womens groups * I’ve seen much forgiveness and mercy from Womens groups
None from Bigots * self apparent observation
None from anyone with a political agenda. * greatly depends on what that political agenda is
Me on the other hand, I have seen great forgiveness from Christian who don’t want to be called fundamentalist, who called liberal, who believe that they are following the way of Christ and the social agenda he laid out. Unfortunately they get seld appointed “fundies of righteousness,” that being the Dobsons, Falwells, Grahams, Robertsons, et. al of the world.
I have not seen great forgiveness from thpse who consider themselves fundies . . . doesn’t matter the faith, just their amount of self righteous bile.
So there you lovely little troll, I’ll feed you . . . I’, eating gold fish right now, want some?????
You need new friends. Stop hanging out with assholes who hate the world and themselves so much that they need fairy tales to keep them going, and you’ll find a lot of genuine kindness and warmth from real human beings who live in the real world.
What did I do to you? There are lots and lots of nice people who are Christians. And they wouldn’t dream of speaking hatefully about you. But yet, you prejudge them. Just as you accuse them of prejudging you.
What you are accusing them of, you are guilty as well.
Are Christians perfect, hardly. Are some assholes, of course. Are some hateful.. not as many as you think…
Lee what does all this have to do with the topic?
Me on the other hand, I have seen great forgiveness from Christian who don’t want to be called fundamentalist, who called liberal, who believe that they are following the way of Christ and the social agenda he laid out. Unfortunately they get seld appointed “fundies of righteousness,” that being the Dobsons, Falwells, Grahams, Robertsons, et. al of the world.
I have not seen great forgiveness from thpse who consider themselves fundies . . . doesn’t matter the faith, just their amount of self righteous bile.
So there you lovely little troll, I’ll feed you . . . I’, eating gold fish right now, want some?????
They don’t want to be called fundamentalist because of the stigma. There isn’t anything wrong with a socialist being a Christian. Atleast I don’t think I said that.
You call me a troll. Ok, well sorry I said anything.
You would be happy if I just left? I never insulted anyone. i spoke the truth.
That might win a award for most disturbing post for the week. I really hope Tina’s son doesn’t read these comments that his mother hates him for what some Iraqis are doing. It’s hard to see how it’s his fault in even the slightest way to deserve such “abiding rage and hatred.”
Not believing in an afterlife doesn’t preclude believing in other nonsense.
I’d say it’s because people are hypocrites in that those with power prefer to enforce laws that affect other people more strongly than those that affect themselves. There may be other underlying causes, but using a religious justification lets people say “I’m making you suffer for your own good, and because God told me to.”
The kind of reasoning I described is the same kind of reasoning that justified the Inquisition and other religiously motivated atrocities. To quote St. Augustine: “Why … should not the Church use force in compelling her lost sons to return, if the lost sons compelled others to their destruction?”
To quote Sam Harris:
“Religion raises the stakes of human conflict much higher tan tribalism, racism, or politics ever can, as it is the only form of in-group/out-group thinking that casts the differences between people in terms of eternal rewards and punishments…
[W]hile the religious divisions in our world are self-evident, many people still imagine that religious conflict is always caused by a lack of education, by poverty, or by politics. Most nonbelievers, liberals, and moderates apparently think that no one ever really sacrifices his life, or the lives of others, on account of his religious beliefs. Such people simply do not know what it is like to be certain of Paradise. Consequently, they can’t believe that anyone is certain of Paradise. It is worth remembering that the September 11 hijackers were college-educated, middle class people who had no discernible experience of political oppression. They did, however, spend a remarkable amount of time at their local mosque talking about the depravity of infidels and about the pleasures that await martyrs in Paradise. How many more architects and engineers must hit the wall at four hundred miles an hour before we admit to ourselves that jihadist violence is not merely a matter of education, poverty, or politics? The truth, astonishingly enough, is this: in the year 2006, a person can have sufficient intellectual and material resources to build a nuclear bomb and still believe that he will get seventy-two virgins in Paradise. Western secularists, liberals, and moderates have been very slow to understand this. The cause of their confusion is simple: they don’t know what it is like to really believe in God.
Lee what does all this have to do with the topic?
Perhaps a little. A feminst is accusing ‘fundies’ of not wanting women to have access to medicine and doctors.
Well I disagree with that. There is CERTIANLY no reason for a woman to not go to the doctor. No matter who doesn’t like it. Women need healthcare as well as anyone else.
And Fundie is been thrown around so much in a negative light that I wanted to point out that who people are calling fundamentilists are perhaps not a fundamentalists.
Maybe I got carried away, but I consider myself a fundamentalist and I wouldn’t ever say a woman can’t go to a doctor.
And yes I am against abortion. But what I say on that matter doesn’t seem to change anything. So I will admit that under US law, a woman can seek out and get an abortion.
I don’t want to hurt her, or the doctor or anyone else that does that. I would like to have the right to show mercy and compassion for a woman who goes through something like that and has psychological trauma, or feels guilty about it. Let her know there is forgiveness and mercy. Some (maybe a lot, I don’t know) don’t have those troubles. Some do.
I would vote for abortion to be abolished IF I was given that choice. I wasn’t, am not now, nor will it probably ever be given to me in the future, so that is a mute point and I digress.
I don’t hate women, I don’t hate anyone. And if you read as though I spew out hatred, you are mistaken and should try to give me a fair shake.
I find feminism interesting… I don’t agree with it. But it is interesting.
So there you lovely little troll, I’ll feed you . . . I’, eating gold fish right now, want some?????
By the way, I have loved those goldfish since they came out. My son loved them and had me try them.
Is it possible for you to send one digitially?
j/k
“I would vote for abortion to be abolished IF I was given that choice. I wasn’t, am not now, nor will it probably ever be given to me in the future, so that is a mute point and I digress.”
Well, Lee, you’re in luck! It seems that since 1981, there’s been a virtually non-stop effort to pack the SCOTUS with “right thinking” justices, whose every waking moment is devoted to overturning Roe v. Wade, while cryptically trying to appear unwilling to do so.
Prediction: Within the next 5-years, thanks to your friends on the Supreme Court, Roe will be eliminated. Oh, it won’t be done directly, with an “honest” and full public renouncement (that would cost too many votes for the “conservatives”), but it will be made so hollow it will no longer be in operation. You should be happy Lee - you’re getting your way…
“I don’t hate women, I don’t hate anyone.”
Sorry, Lee, but I keep seeing this picture in my mind of you and thousands of your friends, all holding torches and pitchforks, while you shout “Burn the witch!!!“. You are looking at a picture of Amanda while doing this. I wonder why that exact vision keeps coming back, over and over?…
“And if you read as though I spew out hatred, you are mistaken and should try to give me a fair shake.”
Fair enough. If we manage to avoid becoming Gilead during the next 10-years, let’s hook up, talk about old times, and catch up with where our lives have gone in the meantime…
Uh, no… So I suppose you now just disproved something? You did nothing.
Really?
Are you or are you not a Christian?
If so, then by your own comments you have a fundamental belief in the Bible, and that you believe the Bible is the infallible word of God.
Which includes Mark 16:17-18.
But you seem to doubt this passage, Lee. You seem to be a tad reluctant to give it credit as an infallible statement by the Almighty.
I wonder why?
But you seem to doubt this passage, Lee. You seem to be a tad reluctant to give it credit as an infallible statement by the Almighty.
I wonder why?
You said to prove it, which meant doing what it said. I don’t go around healing people and I don’t go around tossing out demons. I have not run into anything for me to heal someone. I am not going to purposely drink something that is poison. It is the infallible word of God. But you don’t go around giving shows on it.
And if that is what you use to discredit someone, well, I just feel sorry for you.
Could someone please give this Lee a 48-pack of bunnies?
I would vote for abortion to be abolished IF I was given that choice. I wasn’t, am not now, nor will it probably ever be given to me in the future, so that is a mute point and I digress.”
Well, Lee, you’re in luck! It seems that since 1981, there’s been a virtually non-stop effort to pack the SCOTUS with “right thinking” justices, whose every waking moment is devoted to overturning Roe v. Wade, while cryptically trying to appear unwilling to do so.
Prediction: Within the next 5-years, thanks to your friends on the Supreme Court, Roe will be eliminated. Oh, it won’t be done directly, with an “honest” and full public renouncement (that would cost too many votes for the “conservatives”), but it will be made so hollow it will no longer be in operation. You should be happy Lee - you’re getting your way…
“I don’t hate women, I don’t hate anyone.”
Sorry, Lee, but I keep seeing this picture in my mind of you and thousands of your friends, all holding torches and pitchforks, while you shout “Burn the witch!!!“. You are looking at a picture of Amanda while doing this. I wonder why that exact vision keeps coming back, over and over?…
“And if you read as though I spew out hatred, you are mistaken and should try to give me a fair shake.”
Fair enough. If we manage to avoid becoming Gilead during the next 10-years, let’s hook up, talk about old times, and catch up with where our lives have gone in the meantime…
Listen Mike. I had nothing to do with abortion becoming legal. It won’t be by my hand that it will become illeagal again. I don’t subscribe to democrats or republicans. I am not political. I just feel abortion is wrong.
Burn the witch? Oh come on. That would be murder.
I am not interested in burning witches.
Ok Mike. Do you advocate limiting Christians freedoms in this country? Do you advocate killing Christians? The fundies as one could say?
because I sure don’t advocate killing anyone.
The republicans and the democrats are on opposite sides of the spectrum. The democrats are for abortion and against the death penalty. The republicans are against abortion and for the death penalty. Well thanks to both of you, you get both the death penalty and abortion. gee… No matter where you go you people are always killing someone.
Do you even understand “fundamental”? You call them ‘fundies’.
Being a fundamental Christian means to take your faith seriously. That you believe the Bible is the infallible word of God.
I call them fundies because they are liars.
They lie when they believe that the Bible is the infallible Word of God.
They lie in public. They lie in Congress. They lie in private. They sometimes lie to themselves. Liars lie. They are liars. They deserve to have pejoratives thrown at them.
In fact, when they lie against God, they are blasphemers. Fundies that attach themselves to secular causes escape this particular phenomenon, but that is of no moment.
If a Christian does not have a fundamental belief in the Bible, then he/she is no Christian and might as well turn their back on the whole thing.
Which is the essential absurdity in Lee’s writing. The fundies set themselves apart from other Christians, like any cult, on this item.
Plenty of fundies cited the Bible to “prove” that whites are better than blacks — some still do.
Plenty say Jesus, in effect, didn’t mean what he said when he spoke about giving to the poor, but that he thought homosexuals are evil.
They drew a line in a sand, they set themselves apart. Communist fanatics did something similar — for us or against us rhetoric isn’t something anyone has a monopoly on.
Now, What is a Christian? Well, Christian is defined as a follower of Jesus Christ. And if you are a fundamental Christian. . .
There’s that erroneous logic again. If a Christian is a person who follows Jesus Christ, of what use is it to be fundamentalist? How can you be “more” Christian than someone else? Can you be somewhat dead? Can you be a little pregnant? You either have accepted Christ or you haven’t.
Who created this differentiation? Fundies. They must. Fundamentalism is a self-serving social movement; it does nothing for theology.
I recall when Santorum was, with his blue-dog Democrat allies, backing the Bankruptcy bill he was challenged, on the Senate floor, on the point that God dislikes persecution of debtors and traditions akin Jubilee (where debts are forgiven) is strong in Judaism and, as a result, Christianity. Santorum responded that his religion beliefs had to be kept separate from his politics.
I’m not fucking kidding.
There is no evident dearth of forgiveness from people. If I insist that a rapist go to jail, am I refusing to forgive him? Of course not — that is sheer idiocy. I want the rapist to pay his debt and to prevent him from raping again. Whether or not I forgive him is nearly unrelated, and it is certainly not reflected in a common-sense stand on crime.
And I’ve seen forgiveness from Muslims. Just after September 11th, 2001, plenty of Muslims gathered in solidarity to mourn our dead. Considering our history and tendencies in the Middle East, this was particularly gracious.
There is nothing in the Bible that begins to justify the kind of evil we find in misogyny. However, Isiah 1:18 describes God saying “Come, let us reason together.” It’s pretty clear God doesn’t want us stupid.
Could someone please give this Lee a 48-pack of bunnies?
Well, I haven’t said anything hateful. I disagreed with what she was saying. Atleast from my part of the country.
I stated what I did believe on the subject.
I didn’t think I would ever see the day that people would show such hate for the Son Of God.
Well, I was definetly wrong on that account.
Why do you hate Christians so much?
You call them many many names. One treats you with respect, and woah.. you get your knickers in a twist.
Sorry.. I will leave you all alone now.
So you can forget the bunnies.
And please, stop being hateful towards people, sooner or later people will start calling you bigots.
Because that is what you’re turning into.
The very people you judge and deride, you have become just like them. I hope you see the light someday though.
Good day and Good life and Good bye.
Go ahead… say it, Good Riddiance.. That damned Christian is gone.. we can feel better.
There’s that erroneous logic again. If a Christian is a person who follows Jesus Christ, of what use is it to be fundamentalist? How can you be “more” Christian than someone else? Can you be somewhat dead? Can you be a little pregnant? You either have accepted Christ or you haven’t.
Then I mis understood the definition of fundamental.
I didn’t read it as more. I read it as a fundamental belief in Christ. So if I mistook it, sorry.
Those people who you complain about, I have my doubts about them. However, you don’t do your cause any good by saying all fundies are assholes.
Well, I cna say bad things about non-believers, but that isn’t right either.
But who cares, right? You feminists are right and everyone else is wrong. However, You aren’t right about everything.
Now I am leaving.. heh
The kind of reasoning I described is the same kind of reasoning that justified the Inquisition and other religiously motivated atrocities. To quote St. Augustine: “Why … should not the Church use force in compelling her lost sons to return, if the lost sons compelled others to their destruction?”
And motivated the Soviet communists. . . which I pointed out earlier. This is simply inane. You respond to a point that demolishes your own — which seems to be that the stupidty and immorality and fundamentalism is limited to a religious context — by repeating your point. Lee, you’ve been watching Bush too long. Repeating something stupid over and over doesn’t make it so. Secularists can be fundamentalists, too. They’re assholes when they do it as well.
Religion raises the stakes of human conflict much higher tan tribalism, racism, or politics ever can, as it is the only form of in-group/out-group thinking that casts the differences between people in terms of eternal rewards and punishments
What an amazingly, breathtakingly broad non-sequitor. It does not follow that speaking in “eternal awardds and punishments” makes religion “raise the stakes of human conflict.” Humans can, and will, fight for amazingly stupid, pointless, and even contradictory reasons. They will sacrifice their children, their lives, and their honor for complete bullshit. Religion does not make this more nor less likely. Going from making stuff up to quoting someone who makes stuff up does not make the original point less inane.
Most nonbelievers, liberals, and moderates apparently think that no one ever really sacrifices his life, or the lives of others, on account of his religious beliefs.
We’re being pushed seriously off-topic here, but this the sentence immediately above is simply, completely wrong. It’s not a fact. It’s a lie.
[The 9/11 terrorists] spen[t] a remarkable amount of time at their local mosque talking about the depravity of infidels and about the pleasures that await martyrs in Paradise.
I already pointed out that they had plenty of secular motivation and secular lifestyles.
“There are no athiests in the trenches.” This is not, strictly speaking, true, but nearness to death does tend to make people more likely to consider spiritual matters. But just because someone is inclined to believe in something metaphysical doesn’t make them a convert, nor religious, and it sure as hell doesn’t make them a fundie. The 9/11 hijackers may have had a veneer of Islam but that doesn’t push them into the religious fanatic camp. (Note that there are plenty of other fanaticisms available to them, and plenty of regular-old religious fanatics are murding people in Afghanistan and Iraq even as we speak.)
The cause of their confusion is simple: they [liberals] don’t know what it is like to really believe in God.
And here Lee passes from troll to asshole. Good job, stud! By the way, plenty of liberals are devotees of several well-known faiths and, in fact, have been responsible for lots of progressive causes in the U.S. See also the Civil Rights Movement (that was Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King) and the abolitionist movement.
Maybe I got carried away, but I consider myself a fundamentalist and I wouldn’t ever say a woman can’t go to a doctor.
No one cares. Fundies don’t have to agree on the particulars of their doctrine. They merely have to agree on their certainty of righteousness despite the scriptures that contradict that conclusion.
This was a quote that I forgot to put in tags — sorry for any confusion:
[The 9/11 terrorists] spen[t] a remarkable amount of time at their local mosque talking about the depravity of infidels and about the pleasures that await martyrs in Paradise.
Now I am leaving
Please don’t. It’s been a while since we had your breed of slack-jawed incomprehension around, and it’s massively entertaining. We would miss you if you were gone.
I really hope Tina’s son doesn’t read these comments that his mother hates him for what some Iraqis are doing.
Oh, please. Calm down and get a sense of context. Everyone in the world is not obligated to make you feel good about yourself at all times.
“Ok Mike. Do you advocate limiting Christians freedoms in this country? Do you advocate killing Christians? The fundies as one could say?”
I am a huge advocate of “live and let live”.
The founders of America, having fresh experience with the negative power of state-advocated religion, wisely set up this country so people would be free to believe (or not believe) whatever they wanted, no matter how misguided, as long as they didn’t get the government to back them up, or force others to believe as they do.
This pact has been tested and bent over the years but, until recently, had remained more-or-less intact since the beginning.
However, some of the christians (and it’s almost always the christians - other religions just don’t seem to act that way) have decided there is no “separation of church and state”, that they have the right and the obligation to make every American citizen toe their line.
The peace has been breeched, the gloves are coming off.
The most recent threat to the peace has been the rise of the Christian Dominionism movement, which wants to make the US into the theocracy they believe it was always meant to be.
It ain’t the atheists and the other religionists who seek to control the US - it’s the christians. And I for one am sick and tired of it.
I have not, and would not advocate “killing Christians” - that’s wrong, morally wrong (and yes, non-christians DO HAVE morals).
But that doesn’t mean we just roll over and let you take over the whole damn country.
There are a lot of people here who are not-christians, or who do not believe in your particular flavor of christianity. Deal with it…
Please don’t. It’s been a while since we had your breed of slack-jawed incomprehension around, and it’s massively entertaining. We would miss you if you were gone.
Hmmmm.. now I am stupid too huh? Well, that is ok. You don’t seem much brighter from my point of view.
MikeEss,
Lighten up… I know the freedoms in this country. I do NOT agree to a theocracy in this country. It would be a disaster. I agree you and I have freedom of religion, no arguements there.
I believe the government should be secular. Seperation of Church and State. No, it does not say that in the constitution. However, Religion (all Religions) is protected FROM the state. Not vice versa. What you advocate is the same. Yes it is. I don’t want the government meddling in my beliefs. It is not their place.
You want to remove God from schools, well ok. You want to remove God from the pledge, fine by me. You want to remove the ten commandments from court houses… go to it.
Don’t lump me with the people trying to overtake government with their beliefs.
For example: I believe that marriage should not be dictated by the government. It started out as record keeping, now it is turning into control. There should be no marriage amendment. If a church is ok with marrying gays. Well then they should marry them. But, they have to deal with God.
If I want to homeschool my kids and not by the government, the government should have no right to poke their nose into my buisness. I don’t abuse my kids, They are fine children. If someone abuses their kids, then they deserve whatever punishment the government brings upon them.
As far as non-Christians having morals.. of course they do. All people know right from wrong. It is hardwired into all people. If you’re an athiest, you believe it is you learned it. if you are a Christian, you believe God wrote it into your heart. Result is the same. I never once nor have I ever assumed that non-Christians were all criminals. They just don’t know God yet is all.
I don’t believe you should roll over and let anybody take over the country. I don;t want to. Infact I don’t really want anything to do with the present government. The only thing the government has given us over the past 150+ years is war and taxes.
I don’t like either one.
And if you think it was Christians who founded this country, think again. They might have been diests, but they weren’t Christians. Not once do they mention Jesus. They mention Creator, and Supreme Beign(sp?). If they were Christians, they would have mentioned Christ. So, I believe this government has never been Christian friendly. It’s just that it never had power over them. And for Christians to take the government over is wrong. They should just stay away.
Flavor of Christianity? Ummm… You lost me. I believe what the Bible says. Are there any other Christians?
(Just for the record. I don’t believe that Catholics or Protestants, are the ONE true church. You can be of any denomination. Infact the first Church was made up of Jews. That fact sends a lot of mouthy Christians into hyperventalation)
However, some of the christians (and it’s almost always the christians - other religions just don’t seem to act that way) have decided there is no “separation of church and state”, that they have the right and the obligation to make every American citizen toe their line.
Only because Christianity is popular. Even Jefferson pointed out in a letter that he played at being religiously devout just to impress the rubes. The commies have been nice guys in the States, but they were complete assholes in Russia. The Jews are cool here, but the Israeli hawks have a well-deserved reputation. Every group of humans on earth, when made into a supermajority, tends to become massively obnoxious, because, at bottom, we kinda suck.
Other religions will happily develop fundamentalist cults that fuck over those in the area, given the chance.
Fundamentalism isn’t about doctrine — if it arises from a doctrine, it perverts whatever came before, but it doesn’t have to be about doctrine. Fundamentalism is about having a Truth that serves as nothing but an excuse for one to be a complete prick, buyoed up by self-serving rationalizations.
I’m sure we can find Animist fundies in Africa if we look.
Ugh. My first paragraph was supposed to be a blockquote. Too tired to use flags tonight.
Mike,
You can believe as you will, don’t need my permission. But it is a crime to present my point of view on here with out being called nasty names?
I did it without using vile language (or is that encouraged?) I really try to be civil, but I am not perfect. Is this blog intolerant of a different point of view? Especially if it is from a Christian?
I do try to stay away from organized religion. All of them. They are kind of dangerous these days.
Only because Christianity is popular. Even Jefferson pointed out in a letter that he played at being religiously devout just to impress the rubes. The commies have been nice guys in the States, but they were complete assholes in Russia. The Jews are cool here, but the Israeli hawks have a well-deserved reputation. Every group of humans on earth, when made into a supermajority, tends to become massively obnoxious, because, at bottom, we kinda suck.
So, if the liberals become a super majority in this country, does that mean they will do the samething?
Would you turn on your fellow liberals in power if they did that?
You don’t seem much brighter from my point of view.
Oh, my. I guess I’ll have to start mistrusting my friends and family and believing in a sky fairy now, because I can’t have you doubting my intelligence.
“Only because Christianity is popular. Even Jefferson pointed out in a letter that he played at being religiously devout just to impress the rubes.”
True. The christians grabbed the brass ring first in America.
I’ve heard there are hindu fundamentalists, we know there are islamic fundamentalists. I’ve never heard of buddhist fundamentalists, but they’re probably working on that now.
Whatever whips the locals into a frenzy, somebody is trying to exploit to gain power and influence…
So, if the liberals become a super majority in this country, does that mean they will do the samething?
Would you turn on your fellow liberals in power if they did that?
For those keeping score, number of points of Lee’s that I have refuted that he has successfully buttressed: 0.
From him, we have naught but distractions. But I’m game.
a) The Framers of the Constitution all described themselves as liberal. To a man. The conservatives were the Tories. I am more liberal than the Framers — for example, I believe slavery to be a clear wrong. That is to my credit — and, in their honest moments, they would credit me as more virtuous, and more liberal, than they on that point.
So “fellow liberal” would be better rendered “fellow American.” The right wing isn’t an alternative viewpoint as much as it is a fifth column.
b) The more “liberal” party has been in power in the U.S. from time to time and, wonder of wonders, they’ve been assholes, too. Back inna day, that more liberal party was the Republicans. In the modern day, it’s the Democrats. It doesn’t matter. What we haven’t had is a run of progressive leaders. Liberalism doesn’t have much of a code of honor associated with it (contrast to conservatism, which, if thought of correctly, isn’t a political system at all but merely a cautionary nature — the opposite of the right wing mentality), but progressivism does.
Some groups are bound to be better suited for majority status than others, though that status is power and power always leads to some corruption. Sure, there are jackasses in civil rights movements in the states, but better they be in the majority than white power factions.
Who ends up in control really does matter. This in no way undermines the point that fundamentalism is a universal plague.
And Mike Ess, I remember reading that William Penn founded his eponymous state (I’ve been wanting to use that word for sooooo long) in response to puritan assholery. The fundie grab for power happened at the very start of our history on this continent.
We’re taught how the Puritans left jolly ol’ England to escape religious persecution in elementary. Lovely bit of irony there: what Puritans really wanted was the power to persecute everyone else, and the English all but threw them out in disgust.
Why do you keep calling me “Lee”? I’m Doug!
First of all: yes, of course secular dogmas can inspire craziness. However, I don’t understand how bringing in “eternal rewards and punishments” can’t do anything OTHER THAN raise the stakes. It might not change the means by which the conflict is fought, but secular conflicts are, by definition, about this world and are therefore finite in scope and consequences. As I said before, causing someone to die is a lesser harm than causing someone to be damned; secular conflicts are about mortal bodies, while religious conflicts are about immortal souls. Those are clearly higher stakes, just like a fight over $1,000,000 clearly has higher stakes than a fight over $1,000.
If religion doesn’t matter, then why are all suicide bombers either 1) Muslim or 2) members of the Tamil Tigers, a rebel group in Sri Lanka? Where are the Palestinian Christian suicide bombers? They’re every bit as oppressed as the Palestinian Muslims. Where are the Tibetan Buddhist suicide bombers?
Anyway, I think I may not have been clear on what I mean when I say “really believe.” If you really believe something, it means that you’re willing to take actions based on that belief. For example, I’m rather confident that you “really believe” that your tap water isn’t poisonous and that you don’t “really believe” that the U.S. economy is going to collapse in the next three years and make all dollar-denominated assets worthless. What kinds of actions might someone who really believes that martyrs get a one-way ticket to Paradise take?
“So, if the liberals become a super majority in this country, does that mean they will do the samething?”
How about this: “All power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely…”
I believe that any group - no matter how pure their intentions may start out - when given sufficient power with insufficient accountability will eventually devolve into doing bad things. Of course, I really don’t know who you are referring to when you use the word “liberal”. The last 40-years of attacks on that word from the wingnuts have turned “liberal” into more or less meaning “not conservative enough”…
“Would you turn on your fellow liberals in power if they did that?”
First, I don’t necessarily call myself a liberal. What I absolutely oppose is anything currently labeled “conservative”. That word has been transformed into a virulent and malignant identity, used by radicals as a weapon against their “enemies”, and is no longer recognizable by any normal dictionary definition.
However, to answer the question - yes, I would “turn on them” if “liberals” start tapping phones, intercepting internet communications, starting illegal wars, manipulating presidential elections, declaring a “unitary executive”, adding “signing statements” to nullify laws passed by congress, suspending habeas corpus, torturing suspects, denying them access to lawyers and fair trials, outing CIA agents as political retribution, pardoning their own staff members following legal conviction on grave crimes, or any of the dozens of other things the Bushites have been doing to our country since 2000.
If you are bad, you are bad. Bad “liberals” are still bad. Bad “conservatives” are still bad. Bad people should not be allowed to stay in our government…
Was talking to someone else on another blog with a different name; mea culpa.
Yes, you do seem to be having trouble with that. Your definition of “stakes” is extremely lacking here. You must give a specific example; this makes no sense in general. If two nations are at war both sides may well argue that god wants them to win that war. But the price of failure in war is often death, or things worse than death — repeated rapes, death of family and friends, loss of freedom — hell, that can be the price of just maintaining a war. You haven’t made it clear at all how damnation “raises the stakes” for all parties concerned such that people begin to behave abnormally. Killing each other for no good reason is what people do, with or without religion.
Suicide bombing is a tactic used by less-powerful factions. Your generalization is pathetic. You are familiar with the term “kamikaze,” right? You aren’t seriously going to assert that the Japanese weren’t suicidal?
Every nation on earth has soldiers willing to be sacrificed for a greater good. Hell, every nation has policemen willing to do the same. And we even have some crazies, in every country, willing to hurt innocent people to do the job. In fact, in some war contexts, it’s not even a crazy thing to do. We killed innocent people in Germany in WWII, but that alone didn’t make WWII a bad thing to wage. (Whether or not we were excessive is a different story.)
Even if you make a suicidal attack, it will only be a bad thing if you lose the propaganda war, which Muslims always will on this side of the pond.
And by the way, merely being willing to kill innocents, self-destruction aside, is hardly a Muslim trait. Or do we need to remind the blog of abortion clinic bombings (even if you never had anything to do with an abortion, you’re just as dead if you’re nearby) or the Oklahoma City bombing? Former from fundie protestants, latter from an agnostic jackass.
What kinds of actions might someone who really believes that his family will receive $100,000 if he blows himself up in a suicide attack? There are charities that pay suicide bombers’ families for success.
Assuming a religious motive, while part of the narrative of the Powers That Be, is not necessarially corect.
Yikes!
I go off and hunt a few Zerg, take a nap before starting the turkey and come back to . . .
Anyone else getting a freaky StarTrek:TOS “Landrew” vibe off of Lee?
I can assure you a pandagonian doesn’t think that.
Here’s that fundie, bat shit crazy God Warrior vibe.
I’ll have to ask my friend, a P.K. and now chaplian, if she believes this to be true.
I choked a bit on the government not being friendly to Christians. . . whose holiday is a national holiday and what/whose day of rest were blue laws geared to?
Stopping here for a moment to point out that EVERY religion homeschools in this country as well as athesits, and (gasp) the gays.And now to take on the statement. How does anyone know that you don’t abuse your kids? I live in a town where some fundie Christian homeschooling families actually killed two of their children. They had the same attitude about the governments right or lack there of to stick their nose into these families’ business. You say you don’t, so did they.
If religion doesn’t matter, then why are all suicide bombers either 1) Muslim or 2) members of the Tamil Tigers,
What an inane statement trying to dress itself up in “something particular to them” meme
okay let’s play: then why if religion doesn’t matter, are all noose hangers amd lynchers, in this country white protestant Christians who believe that the Bible says that God tells them that they are better than anyone else in this nation and therefore have special rights and privileges.
And from their reading and interpretation of that holy scripture have become the longest and most enduring home grown terrorist group(s), responsible for far more death on this soil than what happened on 9-11.
Gah, lost the post to the spam filter.
nooc @11:29am: It would be helpful if you could point out where Doug’s train of conclusion leaves the track, beyond “trollbait”.
Where the “atheists are immoral” train goes off to lala land has been written here often and throughoutly. But where’s the flaw in “do everything necessary to avoid the worst possible outcome”?
I could think of some (lack of compassion: “I do not care who goes to hell, as long as I won’t”, hypocrisy: “I don’t really believe in hell, I just pretend when it suits me”, schadenfreude: “those people deserve to burn for all eternity”, self-centeredness: “am I my brother’s keeper?”) but I have no idea which of those, if any, are canonical.
PhoenicianRomans @ 6:24 pm: You’re assuming that Lee is a Christian. The post you’re replying to isn’t clear on that.
Lee Richards claimed: because I sure don’t advocate killing anyone.
Lee, in a comment just above the one in which you claimed you don’t advocate “killing anyone”, you said: I would vote for abortion to be abolished IF I was given that choice.
So you’re either very stupid and have never once looked at what happens in countries where abortion is “abolished” - which is, straightforwardly: maternal morbidity and maternal mortality rates go sky high - or else you have looked at what happens when people succeed in getting abortion “abolished” and you like the idea of thousands of women dying.
So, are you just that stupid? Or are you advocating for the deaths of thousands of women?
My guess is the former: you’re a dumb pro-lifer who thinks fetuses hang in a little golden mist midair, and doesn’t think (or care) about pregnant women. Am I right?
Lee Richards claimed: because I sure don’t advocate killing anyone.
Lee, in a comment just above the one in which you claimed you don’t advocate “killing anyone”, you said: I would vote for abortion to be abolished IF I was given that choice.
So you’re either very stupid and have never once looked at what happens in countries where abortion is “abolished” - which is, straightforwardly: maternal morbidity and maternal mortality rates go sky high - or else you have looked at what happens when people succeed in getting abortion “abolished” and you like the idea of thousands of women dying.
So, are you just that stupid? Or are you advocating for the deaths of thousands of women?
My guess is the former: you’re a dumb pro-lifer who thinks fetuses hang in a little golden mist midair, and doesn’t think (or care) about pregnant women. Am I right?
I don’t know of very many countries or even a few that had abortion and then had it abolished, which countries would that be?
However, when the fight for abortion to become legal was going on around the country. The statistics that were reported in the news were exagerations.
20 years after the fact, the people who sent those statistics admitted to lying.
I don’t worship fetuses. Good grief. And I do care about pregnant women. Heck I WAS married to one four times.
And I am rather shocked, people here have reacted to my posts as if I was saying hateful things to you.
Which I wasn’t. However, the hate I got back from you was staggering. If I was at some rally and said what I did, would you speak that way? Physically attack me (I have my doubts on that one)? Or just throw insults and “shout me down”
Oh, I get it, Lee Richards is a “Nice Guy ™”. In Lee’s world when you come to a cocktail party full of people you don’t know and tell them they are all going to hell because they don’t ascribe to Lee’s belief system that’s a *nice thing.* Not content with telling the Jews, muslims, atheists and buddhists that they are going to hell for not accepting Jesus Christ he also has the brass faced gall to tell the entire rest of the Christian community that they are also going to hell because *he thinks* he knows in just what way they need to “accept Jesus Christ” as their savior. And then he caps off this piece of massive arrogance with an utterly false and insulting (and pointless) set of propositions like “forgiveness” comes only for [the christian] god and assets that no persons in our lives can help us, love us, or offer us aid and comfort (something he seems to confuse with foregiveness.)
I think the really stunning thing about Lee’s world view is just how frightened, sad, and miserable you’d have to be to imagine that the main reason for believing in g-d is that *otherwise you go to hell* and that *otherwise no one could love you or comfort you when you are in need* and, still worse, to imagine that all people are *sinners* in need of forgiveness. Its not just bad theology (since, in christian theology, after jesus there is no original sin) its horribly bad humanity.
Lee, here’s the thing. Lots of people don’t believe in original sin and don’t believe we are all “sinners” and certainly don’t believe that g-d is needed to *forgive* us. Plenty of religious people believe g-d is there to love and help without judging or condemning. Buddhists don’t think there *is* a g-d but their entire cosmology is based on the idea of compassion and love. Where do you get off setting yourself up as the arbiter and speaker for a supreme being? As someone pointed out upthread you don’t even seem to be good enough to rely on the friends and lovers and relatives that you’ve been given on this earth. How on g-d’s green creation do you get the arrogance to tell other people how they should relate to g-d?
aimai
lee, two countries which have recently recriminalised abortion after having had legal abortion are el salvador and nicaragua. the change was recent in nicaragua, but data gathered since el salvador changed its laws shows that it harms women physically. illegal abortions are less safe than legal abortions, so women are hurt or die. hospitals can’t do anything to treat women, sometimes, until the fetus dies — even in cases where the fetus can’t survive. women who miscarry have to submit to forensic examinations to satisfy the Womb Police that they didn’t try to get an abortion. the problems go on and on.
“illegal abortions are less safe than legal abortions, so women are hurt or die. hospitals can’t do anything to treat women, sometimes, until the fetus dies — even in cases where the fetus can’t survive. women who miscarry have to submit to forensic examinations to satisfy the Womb Police that they didn’t try to get an abortion. the problems go on and on.”
kidlacan, in Lee’s world, those things you named are features, not bugs. If those women weren’t sluts, going against god’s wishes - as clearly spelled out in the bible (which you could read if you had the secret fundamentalist decoder ring) - then they wouldn’t be responsible for killing themselves like that.
But remember:
Lee said, “I don’t hate women, I don’t hate anyone.”
He is happy to lay blame for the hate at god’s feet…
Lee: I don’t know of very many countries or even a few that had abortion and then had it abolished, which countries would that be?
There’s a map here of countries where abortion is illegal (or permitted only to save a woman’s life). You can check for yourself which countries have the highest maternal morbidity and mortality rates, but they correlate.
The most striking example of how making abortion illegal kills women is Romania. Until Ceausescu was overthrown in 1989, abortion was illegal in Romania.
From the WHO Europe site:
And I do care about pregnant women. Heck I WAS married to one four times.
Yet you would have voted to let her die - or have her health permanently damaged - because you would not have wanted to let her save her life or her health by having a legal, safe termination? Odd kind of “caring”, Lee…
A longer comment is in moderation.
Lee: And I am rather shocked, people here have reacted to my posts as if I was saying hateful things to you. Which I wasn’t.
You were saying, explicitly, that you wanted women to die or suffer harm. That’s pretty damn hateful.
(Of course, you may just have been too stupid ever to look up the facts and discover what you were wishing on women.)
“You were saying, explicitly, that you wanted women to die or suffer harm. That’s pretty damn hateful.”
I’m sure Lee believes he doesn’t actually wish harm on any individual woman. The problem is that individual women ARE BEING HARMED by this thinking.
It seems to me either there is a scary inability to empathize with the problems other people (especially women) face in their actual lives (as opposed to the idealistic lives they imagine such people/women should live).
Or, the other possibility is they really do hate women. (But if they do, they probably hate them “for their own good”, or some such rot…).
Neither possibility reflects well on a group who calls themselves “pro life”…
MikeEss: I’m sure Lee believes he doesn’t actually wish harm on any individual woman.
Either he’s never heard of ectopic pregnancy, or of fetuses that die and need to be removed - and it is really hard for me to believe that a grown man who claims to have lived with a woman who has survived pregnancy four times could be genuinely, sincerely, that ignorant - or else, yes, when he says he would vote for “abolishing abortion” he is wishing harm on many individual women, and knows it. There comes a point when for someone to claim blissful ignorance is plain bad faith.
Lee said:
However, when the fight for abortion to become legal was going on around the country. The statistics that were reported in the news were exagerations.
20 years after the fact, the people who sent those statistics admitted to lying.
I was taught this in school by people who (I later found) were lying to me about many, many other “facts” in this debate. I don’t suppose you have any documentation to support this assertion?
And I am rather shocked, people here have reacted to my posts as if I was saying hateful things to you.
Which I wasn’t. However, the hate I got back from you was staggering.
Lee, the post and the comments were target about those Muslim and Christian (self-proclaimed) fundamentalists who targeted OB-GYNs and actively worked to deny women health care. The general feeling of the commenters was that this was a bad thing.
You walk in and open with:
Do you even understand “fundamental”? You call them ‘fundies’.
[…]
The people you rail against (fundies), I have my doubts. But it isn’t up to me if they are a Christian or not.
You are the one who decided we were all talking about you. No one said anything about you personally or your definition of “Christian” or whatever. We said “Fundamentalist monotheists who deny women health care suck.” You are the one who stepped int front of the bullet and said “Hey! Why are you saying I suck? That’s so mean!”
And here’s another hint on general social interaction:
When you are talking to someone you have never met and do not know, it’s considered rude to make statements like…
You will not get no forgiveness or mercy from humans. Unless maybe from a friend, and then sometimes not.
If you want forgiveness and mercy, turn to God. He is the only one offering it. (Really? I know very many forgiving people. You need a better class of associates.)
He offers it to all women and all men. No matter the sin or the number of sins. He is wanting you to say yes to him and be born again. It isn’t too late yet. But the too late part is quickly approaching.
Won’t you just consider it once and think long and hard with an open mind?
(What evidence do you have that the people here have not considered this already, or that some of them already have “accepted Jesus as their personal saviors”? So far, all you know about this group of people is that they oppose people who deny medical care to women for poorly-defined religious reasons. And from that you decide that we all need to “open our minds” and “think long and hard” about our sinful souls?
Does the phrase “Judge not lest ye be judged” sound familiar to you?
No?
How about “Keep walking, asshole”?
“There comes a point when for someone to claim blissful ignorance is plain bad faith.”
Agreed. I really think it’s some combination of doublethink and willful ignorance that results in this kind of attitude. That, or just plain lying (which they think is okay because the end justifies the means).
I’m certainly not defending his use of ignorance as justification for the persecution of women…
“What evidence do you have that the people here have not considered this already, or that some of them already have “accepted Jesus as their personal saviors”? So far, all you know about this group of people is that they oppose people who deny medical care to women for poorly-defined religious reasons. And from that you decide that we all need to “open our minds” and “think long and hard” about our sinful souls?”
This is just the typical christian attitude that if you don’t believe as they do, it must simply be the result of never being exposed to “the truth”.
In their worldview, it’s inconceivable that anyone could learn about jesus and not become a christian.
Lee and the rest of you christianists: In the age of satellites broadcasting 24-hours/day all over the planet, when “3rd world” countries have cell phones, TV, internet access, etc., believing that there are more than a few thousand people on this earth (out of 7-billion) who have not already been exposed to christian ideas - and (often) failed to embrace them - is utter lunacy.
I know you can’t bear to hear/believe it, but not everyone thinks jesus is the best thing since sliced bread (or boiled rice).
I you really believe your ideas are powerful and compelling, put them out there and let people find them on their own. If god is indeed guiding their hand, they will find your ideas and embrace them.
If not, maybe god is on holiday, doesn’t care, or doesn’t really exist…
Speaking here as a practicing Christian, Lee, please get out of my religion. You’re making me look bad by association. Of course, I could say that about a lot of my co-religionists.
Lee Richards: drawing atheists and thinking Christians together since 2007.
/me shrugs
Wouldn’t poorer people be more likely to respond to an offer of money for to their families? The 9/11 hijackers were middle-class, educated people.
Anyway, I think I’ve been too shrill in my commenting, and I’d like to apologize. I guess what I was trying to say was, you don’t have to believe in an afterlife in order to make a kamikaze attack, but it helps.
Blast. I had posted a long-ish comment with cites and links, responding to Lee Richard’s claim to be ignorant ofv countries which had “abolished abortion”.
It vanished into moderation, and rather than do what I’ve seen others do and repost several times, I just let it be, figuring Amanda would rescue it, especially if I noted it was there.
Only, this time, it just vanished. Oh well. I’ve learned my lesson, Amanda; next time I’ll repost repeatedly until it finally gets through, as that’s evidently the preferred method.