I just have to post this video that I saw at PZ’s.
It’s a song about a Jack Chick tract. It’s worth watching, seriously.
But it does raise some serious questions about the religious right and their relationship to law and government. Bear with me, I have a point. One of the favorite things that we pro-choicers like to do to anti-choicers is asking the point-blank how much time a woman should do if she has an illegal abortion. It’s fun to see the rusty gears try to turn, and the stammering come out. Try it at home!
The issue is that they get a lot of enthusiasm by putting things into two simple categories: Bad and Good, and never the twain should meet. And the law should ban Bad things because they’re Bad, and the actual pragmatic issues there (like whether or not everyone thinks they’re Bad) don’t seem to come into the question. But then you have the added issue of this whole Christian salvation doctrine, which says that your sins, no matter how bad, are wiped away if you say you’re really, really sorry to Jesus. And believe in him. And I do believe some crying is involved.
Since they don’t distinguish between sin and things that are a matter of the law, then it’s probably hard for your average wingnut Christian to distinguish between god’s authority to grant forgiveness and the secular need for the law to be enforced fairly. Like in this video. You have a man who raped his daughter, let the neighbor rape his daughter, and gave his 5-year-old herpes. But because he was saved, it’s all okay. No discussion about the immediate need for him to go to jail for a long ass time. God forgives, and so should the government. You say this same thinking with the evangelical outpouring of support for Karla Faye Tucker. It wasn’t that they were anti-execution, per se, but it was clear that they thought it should be reserved for non-fundies, especially those with darker skin. And also with the insane abortion thing. They argue that women who have abortions are murderers, and murderers are only fit for jail, and yet they welcome these “murderers” with open arms if they say they’re sorry and they love Jesus. They put them at the front of the line for propaganda purposes. Don’t they think these women should be in jail?
Just like the whole thing with making “In God We Trust” bigger on the coins, this whole religious right thing is about joining a super special club with special privileges. I heard someone recently describe it as “country club religion”, and I’m stealing that for the title of this post.
100 Responses to “Country club religion”
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Amanda, yer losin’ it, hon.
“. . . this whole religious right thing is about joining a super special club with special privileges.”
Sure! Religious folks DO believe they belong to a super special club with special privileges . . . in the hereafter. A statistically negligible percentage of ‘em (i.e. NONE) believe that those privileges have bearing before the bar. You find me a statistically significant number of “fundies” (jeez, I’d take .0001%) that believe one’s Christianity should grant them special legal dispensation and then your rant about some sort of Christian dhimmitude might be somewhat this side of loony.
“It wasn’t that they were anti-execution, per se, but it was clear that they thought it should be reserved for non-fundies, especially those with darker skin.”
Um, yeah, ‘cause the fundies just LOVE killin’ them darkies. Where do you get this stuff?!?!?
I’m gonna keep readin’you, Amanda. You are so very, very entertaining.
Amanda, yer losin’ it, hon.
“. . . this whole religious right thing is about joining a super special club with special privileges.”
Sure! Religious folks DO believe they belong to a super special club with special privileges . . . in the hereafter. A statistically negligible percentage of ‘em (i.e. NONE) believe that those privileges have bearing before the bar. You find me a statistically significant number of “fundies” (jeez, I’d take .0001%) that believe one’s Christianity should grant them special legal dispensation and then your rant about some sort of Christian dhimmitude might be somewhat this side of loony.
“It wasn’t that they were anti-execution, per se, but it was clear that they thought it should be reserved for non-fundies, especially those with darker skin.”
Um, yeah, ‘cause the fundies just LOVE killin’ them darkies. Where do you get this stuff?!?!?
I’m gonna keep readin’you, Amanda. It is so very entertaining.
The fundies are pretty selective about whose repentance they think Jesus approved. Remember how tight-lipped they got when Bill Clinton said he was very, very sorry and asked for forgiveness and said he was sorry to Jesus? Remember how the Fundie-in-Chief, who thinks Jesus forgives coke-snorting, thought Karla Faye Tucker was just trying to pull a fast one on the Lord?
All ChickTracts should receive similar treatment.
Well, lookie that. Doesn’t it just restore your faith in God when you can see that two jesus-loving enemies like Jack Chick and the RCC can come together to agree on thing like protecting child molesters? I feel so holy now, I may go take a bath.
Do you mean “country club” in the sense of the immunity so many well-off people and their offspring seem to have when it comes to committing crimes? If so, it certainly makes sense that when you believe god owns the whole damn universe, any hanger-on of His Son should be able to get away with whatever they please…
(And of course this is just a tiny taste of what it can be like living in a theocracy, where the quality of your soul, aka your connections to the local religious hierarchy , pretty much determines whether you can commit crimes with impunity.)
When I was in band we had our one big march during the fall, which we only liked doing because we got in free at the local fairgrounds after the parade was done and it was always filled with fundies walking along the parade route, passing out these comically bad things.
By the end of the night the street would be littered with them, almost covering the entire sidewalk, depending on where the fundies were concentrated. I remember one about this young Mexican gang banger who found Jesus through an old woman he was going to rob. My friend and I would take turns reading it to each other and laughing and then we’d throw it on the ground like everyone else. I always wondered how those evangelicals must feel, too see all their hard work trampled on the ground after a hard day of tract passing. But I guess they felt better by believing they’d saved at least one soul that night.
And the stories are always the most ridiculous they can concoct and I enjoyed how no one in the story really gave a shit about Lisa and the VD she now has. No going to the hospital for treatment, no child services taking her to a (hopefully) better home. Nope, they have Jesus now, so all is great and right with the world. And I’m guessing that in fundie world they will find a way to even blame little Lisa for her parent’s behavior (once Lisa becomes a grown woman and such things are permissible). Maybe Jesus will pay for her therapy.
Fundamental Christians frighten me, and I happen to be Christian. FWIW (and I understand that for a lot of people, it’s worth nothing), every Christian I know believes that while God forgives you if you repent, that doesn’t mean you don’t get punished secularly… and, uh, serious, hardcore jail time is part of repenting.
Regarding women who have abortions being excused from being charged with murder, it’s pretty obvious that this would flip immediately should the fundies get their Gilead.
Right now, it makes them seem a little more forgiving and makes a useful argument to use when confronting pro-choicers IRL and when blog trolling (as some recent posts at Pandagon show). Plus the infantilizing of women fits well into their RWA scheme for How Life Should Be Lived. It’s also easier to target clinics and the doctors who perform the procedure.
But I really don’t think it would last long. Just like Karla Faye was still punished, the women who abort would be found out (Kansas Attorney General and his stash of medical records as a template?) and held accountable for their sins.
And remember, in fundie eyes we were all innocent before we were born. Now that we’ve breathing on our own for a few years, we’re all guilty as sin (pun intended), and all that remains is to determine exactly what we are guilty of and see to it we’re punished…
And remember, in fundie eyes we were all innocent before we were born.
It’s nice that you get those nine months of sin free bliss and then once you pass the dirty threshold that is the vagina, you’ve got some repenting to do. Right after you finish pooping your diaper.
Ultra Magnus: They console themselves when non-fundies reject and scorn their work by picturing the punks burning in hell for all eternity. There are specific verses in the New Testament that they use to remind themselves that Jesus understands how hard they have it, and that people are jerks.
I actually think that the drive to feel persecuted, and to be scorned, and to console yourself by reminding yourself that YOU’RE going to heaven while THEY’RE going to Hell is a primary drive in fundies. If they were actually interested in bringing people to Jesus, they would actively minister and lead by example: They would show compassion and live in service of the needy. They would make kindness and compassion to others their focus, instead of looking at Jesus as their Get Out Of Jail Free card. They wouldn’t just litter a bunch of shitty comics all over the place and then leave the scene if they were truly interested in ministering to the unbelievers.
Another interesting aspect of the fundies is their need to “poach” from other churches. If I happened to strike up a conversation with a “church going folk” in Philly (which has a large nutty fundie population), I was invariably asked to attend their service. When I explained that no, I had my own church and my own community that I went to and I was happy there, they began to describe how their church was the only one that was “reallllly” Biblical. Usually this was a function of how much “holy spirit” (read: shrieking, babbling like a moron, and occasionally tearing off your clothes so that everyone in the church could get a nice long gawp at how Christ-filled your tits are, I guess) a service had.
The need for validation and “specialness” is not just about believers vs. non-believers. Fundies typically have to devour their own in vying to be God’s Perfect Apple-Polishers.
“I actually think that the drive to feel persecuted, and to be scorned, and to console yourself by reminding yourself that YOU’RE going to heaven while THEY’RE going to Hell is a primary drive in fundies.”
It wouldn’t be worth going to heaven if they let just anybody in…
“Another interesting aspect of the fundies is their need to “poach” from other churches.”
This one used to bother me too, until I finally realized that most people are religionists, and the vast majority in America are christians of one sort or other.
So if your’re going to “grow or die” and need a constant influx of new blood, you’re probably going to have to get them from some other church.
Ultimately that is the strength of fundamentalists. They always claim they represent the truest form (because they treat followers the shittiest) of their religion, and while a lot of people would be turned off by the extreme nature of such movements, there is always some core group that really eats it up.
And this would not be limited to christians by any means. There are fundamentalist strains of basically every other religion on earth. And if they get the power they crave, you better not stand in their way or it’s gonna hurt…
Can someone explain to me this whole concept of being “saved” so that anything you do afterwards is forgiven by God? Maybe it’s just because I was raised Catholic, and taught that you always have to work for your place in the afterlife, but I’ve never really understood how someone becomes “saved,” or how anyone verifies that, or what have you.
I have an ex-fundie friend who went to Falwell’s Liberty University. She said the perversion level was in the stratosphere. Watching rape victims be forced to publicly “forgive” their rapists (who often had multiple victims), turned her totally against religion.
I used to not believe that the furor over the Catholic pedophile scandal was largely gay-bashing. That was before reading this Sara Robinson post at Orcinus. SNAP, the group that pushed for prosecution of molesting priests, has brought child molesting charges against over 50 Southern Baptist preachers, and gotten convictions against 26 of them. That’s one suit a week in 2007.
Has anybody heard anything about this in the mainstream media? How many Catholic priests were convicted? That was headlines and top stories on the evening news. The silence over this is frightening.
zuzu, I’m trying to find some links, but…
It comes down to a very old argument about how a sinner becomes “justified“, or forgiven for their sins.
Most fundie christians believe in “justification by faith”, where if they believe in the power of Jesus sufficiently, they will be forgiven (that’s what is being mocked in the video). This is contrast with “justification by works”, which Catholics, etc. believe.
This is one of those fights that has gone on for centurie with neither side admitting flaws, and both side accusing the other of being mislead.
Fighting over dogma is stupid. In the end, everybody loses…
Correct me if I’m wrong… but don’t even most fundamentalist Christians think Chick tracts are a fairly extreme form of loonybin? Even though the whole “the most evil guy in the world can go to heaven” does seem to follow pretty logically from some of the “repent and who cares about your works” theology.
It’s kind of like Fred Phelps — he’s a crazy fundamentalist Christian, but not exactly a good yardstick to measure other fundies by. And well, a lot of fundamentalist organizations and philosophies will happily provide you with plenty of their own rope to be hung with.
my recollection is vague, but aren’t there also a couple of christian sects that believe there’s an actual number of “seats” in heaven: enough for their members, and anyone their members “save,” and the rest of the world is SOL, no matter what they do, say, believe, etc.
sounds like a country club to me; and like groucho marx said, i’d never want to join a club that would have me as a member
Um, yeah, ‘cause the fundies just LOVE killin’ them darkies. Where do you get this stuff?!?!?
Well, to be frank, it’s from all them darkies the fundies killed.
I mean, that’s where it comes from, Bruce. We’re observing the behavior of fundamentalists and reporting it. You’re simply closing your eyes to behavior you don’t wish to acknowledge.
I mean, did you completely forget about congressman David Vitter? After he confessed to solicitation of sex, repeatedly, on natural television?
Don’t you remember the special dispensation he got? The minute he asserted that he’d found the forgiveness of his wife and the Lord, everybody seemed to forget that he’d just confessed to breaking the law in at least two states.
Correct me if I’m wrong… but don’t even most fundamentalist Christians think Chick tracts are a fairly extreme form of loonybin?
Who do you think is handing them out, Holly? They don’t hand themselves out at the county fair.
Amanda, you hit the nail on the head. it IS all about the exclusive club.
We’re in the club and thus we’re better than you. And if we’re better than you, we deserve better than you.
And thus we hear things like “In consideration of the defendants faith, I’m reducing the sentence…”
It’s ridiculous. They set up a binary way of judging people.
Christian=good, not christian=bad.
And the most telling aspect is that if someone that was in the “good” category does something bad they suddenly were NEVER in the good category. I.E. not a TRUE Christian.
Most of us get over this around 10 or 11 years old…
Vitter’s special rules probably had more to do with class than religion, but yeah, even mainstream christians think they get special rules cuz they believe
Vitter’s special rules probably had more to do with class than religion
I dunno. That all happened a week after Larry Craig was booked for doing something that isn’t even illegal, and certainly one big difference was that Craig protested his innocence, but Vitter asserted the “forgiven by my wife and God; the matter is settled” and nobody seemed to have the balls to tell him otherwise.
Two white guys, both congressmen, and the worse offender was never even charged despite confessing on national television; it’s hard to argue with the fact that, besides the gay angle, the only difference between them was that Vitter called in the chips with God - the precise thing that Brucie up there thinks never happens.
I’m sure there’s a lot of other examples, people getting off because “everybody knows they’re just a good Christian boy who made a mistake”, or jurors who say “I couldn’t vote guilty on a reverend, despite all the evidence, it’s against my beliefs” like in the case of that old KKK guy.
Hey, Bruce, why don’t you try to explain to us why the church that this con man, child molester, and alleged murder attends is standing behind him 100%?
Quoth his “bishop,” “It’s a real shock to us all…He’s a fine gentleman. That’s all I can tell you. He’s a wonderful man.”
Oh, right. So long as you’re saaaaaaaayyyyyved, you’re OK with fundies.
On the other hand, you can be a faithful churchgoer for fifty years, a reliable tither and donor to your church, and a Sunday-school teacher, but if your pastor gets his nose bent out of joint because you and some friends were talking about the big new house he bought, you can be shunned — and in fact the pastor will call the cops to come escort you from church and arrest you.
“Loving, compassionate xtians” my ass.
Zuzu - it all starts with Calvin. His tiger… Um wait. I mean John Calvin, the reformer. His theology tried to reconcile the “fact” that God is omniscient with the problem of sin and the related problem of salvation. Calvin’s solution was simple: There are two kinds of people, the Elect and the Damned. The Elect are chosen by God for salvation and the Damned are chosen for eternal torment. The sinner’s actions are effectively irrelevant. The Elect know that they are Elect because they believe, and as the Elect they are favored in this life with God’s blessings. This is one reason Calvinists bust their asses so damn hard to achieve material success - it’s the proof of their status as among the Elect. Calvin’s theology splintered and evolved, but our Puritans brought with them a big-ass chunk of it, which leads directly to the Gospel of Prosperity so popular among right wingers.
The extreme limits of the Doctrine of Election were explored by a sect of Radical Anabaptists in the 16th century who held that the Elect could do nothing to remove their status as Elect (which makes sense if you accept the premise of Election), so they could rape, pillage, steal, and so on without consequences in the hereafter. The Damned were pretty much fucked anyway, so they might as well do the same. Not exactly the basis for civil society, eh?
The fundamental problem with Calvinism is that the Radical Anabaptists were being perfectly logical, given a bullshit premise. The influence of Calvinism on modern Evangelical Christianity leads pretty much directly to George W. Bush’s version of the faith.
For those who’ve made it through this little rambling rant - now you know: Never bring up theology around Togolosh when he’s had a few beers in him. I can rant about this shit for *hours*
This is a little off topic, but here is my story about Chick tracts:
Just for a little background, when I was 19 I was raped by a man I was dating. Not really the point of the story, but will help you understand my mind frame at the time. Needless to say, I was more than a little messed by this. I was really angry with men and the patriarchal culture in general. In what can only be described as a cross between fucking with beauty paradigms and a big fuck you to the male gaze, I shaved my head. It didn’t really do that much but upset my grandmother, but it was something I needed to do to heal. SO, one day, me and my shaved head were sitting on a bench outside a store, waiting for my dad to come out. This lady comes up to me and starts asking me if I have a church. Trying to avoid eye contact, I said no and stood up to leave. She handed me this comic tract and says something about how God can heal all of my hurts and walks into the store. I am kind of dumbfounded, so I look at this tract. I don’t know if she picked it just for me cause I looked butch or what, but it was all about this young woman who is raped and becomes a lesbian who has an abortion, or something like that. Then God saves her and she gets married, blah, blah blah. I was just stunned that someone would write bullshit like that and, as a recent rape survivor, completely grossed out. In addition to the homophobia and misogyny, the pamphlet also had a lot of victim blaming language. It was the worst thing I could have read at the time. To top it all off, it completely turned me off to anything Christian. Rather than converting me, it only turned me from an agnostic to an atheist. I felt so bad for that lady, what a nutbag!
*Shakes head* Fundies are a trip.
Well, to be frank, it’s from all them darkies the fundies killed.
I mean, that’s where it comes from, Bruce. We’re observing the behavior of fundamentalists and reporting it. You’re simply closing your eyes to behavior you don’t wish to acknowledge.
I see. So, we have fundamentalist Christians hunting down and killing African-Americans . . . and we’re all blind to it. Do they hunt in packs, singing Onward Christian Soldiers?
I mean, did you completely forget about congressman David Vitter? After he confessed to solicitation of sex, repeatedly, on natural television?
Don’t you remember the special dispensation he got? The minute he asserted that he’d found the forgiveness of his wife and the Lord, everybody seemed to forget that he’d just confessed to breaking the law in at least two states.
So . . . a congressman behaves badly and that proves what, exactly? All sorts of lawbreakers express contrition in all sorts of ways. “I found God” just seems to be the most handy. His getting off has far more to do with his contrition that it does with any Christian secret handshake.
Hey, Bruce, why don’t you try to explain to us why the church that this con man, child molester, and alleged murder attends is standing behind him 100%?”
Um, maybe because his crimes are still ALLEGED? And so what if he does? What difference does his Bishop’s support have in terms of the law? Remember, the legal implications of being a Christian are at issue here.
Oh, right. So long as you’re saaaaaaaayyyyyved, you’re OK with fundies.
Well, actually, you’re OK with the fundies, and with the rest of us, for that matter, until your convicted.
On the other hand, you can be a faithful churchgoer for fifty years, a reliable tither and donor to your church, and a Sunday-school teacher, but if your pastor gets his nose bent out of joint because you and some friends were talking about the big new house he bought, you can be shunned — and in fact the pastor will call the cops to come escort you from church and arrest you.
OK, so we have an extremely old pastor (heard of dementia?) who behaves badly. Any clue why it hit the news? Yeah, that’s right; because it’s such an unusual, odd story.
Have any of you seen the movie The King?
It’s basically about what Amanda was talking about - how far can someone go in their sinning and still be forgiven? (I don’t want to give too much away in case someone wants to see it.)
Who do you think is handing them out, Holly? They don’t hand themselves out at the county fair.
Um… super-extra crazies? OK, you got me, I have no idea. I’ve been handed Chick tracts before, but the people giving them seemed totally loopy to me. I can’t tell loopy from extra-loopy.
Oh, if you want to see a big ol’ dose of victim blaming, rent Hell House, the documentary about a Texas megachurch that does a “Christian” haunted house every year.
I couldn’t decide which scenario made me want to vomit more, the rape victim who goes to Hell because she commits suicide or the gay victim of child molestation who ends up there. Apparently, if someone else assaults or molests you, you’re doomed to go to Hell no matter what.
I think the worst Chick comic that I’ve seen (and I haven’t seen that Lisa one), was one where a Big Bad Bikie dude got sent to prison, and raped all the other prisoners. One day, the prison chaplain gives him a Chick tract (one about a little boy whose father beats him to death, but the boy finds Jesus– through another chick tract– five minutes before he dies), and Big Bad Bikie becomes a convert. He emerges from his cell, and announces his intention to use his muscle to enforce Christianity onto the entire prison populace. He then says, “And there will be no more raping, because I’ve just found out that sodomy is wrong!”
You get that kids? The big problem wasn’t that he’d been raping the other prisoners, the big problem was that this raping was teh gay.
Some Jack Chick comics, like the anti-DnD one, are funny. But others are really really sick.
http://notalwaysright.com/sloth-envy-lust-and-prepaid-gas/298
Duh. Haven’t you heard that in Christianity rape is just a particularly vigorous marriage proposal?
Wow. I just read Lisa, and I think it’s even worse than the song makes it out to be.
Lisa’s dad’s child molestation is basically portrayed as a sinful but perfectly understandable response to the stresses in his life (failing marriage, loss of employment, etc), given his unsaved status.
Yup. IIRC the tract even hints that it’s the mother’s fault just as much as the father’s.
The fact that the neighbour wants to rape the little girl just as much as the father strikes me as a peculiarity of Chick Tract Faith — rather like the notion that anyone could be “turned” gay, it suggests that wanting to rape five-year-olds is just typical of the normal unsaved male. Christianity is indeed a country club, and everyone outside the country club is a sexual threat.
There’s this crazy thing called “history” you might want to look into, Bruce.
Duh. Haven’t you heard that in Christianity rape is just a particularly vigorous marriage proposal?
You may be right, when talking about people Jack Chick would consider Christian. Most of the Christians I know, however, wouldn’t see it that way.
Or, if you belong to a certain kind of fundie/evangelical community, they cease to be sins. Listen to Christian heavy metal, go on Christian vacations, read Christian fashion magazines, join Christian dating sites, and all of a sudden those things aren’t frivolous or sinful, they’re holy!
There’s this crazy thing called “history” you might want to look into, Bruce.
Yeah, that crazy thing called history includes whites enslaving, oppressing, and killing blacks . . . secular whites or did I get it wrong and fundamentalist Christians were the only ones doing it?
And what about now? Amanda was referring to the Karla Faye Tucker case, not the Jim Crow days.
What a beehive of sheer lunacy. I hear some nutty stuff on Democratic Underground and y’all and Amanda are giving them a good run for their money.
“Well, actually, you’re OK with the fundies, and with the rest of us, for that matter, until your convicted.”
…so if OJ Simpson wanted to date your daughter, you’d be cool with that?…
“Yeah, that crazy thing called history includes whites enslaving, oppressing, and killing blacks . . . secular whites or did I get it wrong and fundamentalist Christians were the only ones doing it?”
There really wasn’t anything we’d recognize as “secular” until relatively recently. And it certainly wasn’t bands of rampaging atheists (or Catholics, or Lutherans, or Episcopalians) going around lynching blacks for getting “too uppity”, or “looking at the white women”, or some such nonsense.
There are good (if sick) reasons why groups like the KKK place “god” in such high esteem while they do everything possible to to make religionists look bad to us non-religionists…
…so if OJ Simpson wanted to date your daughter, you’d be cool with that?…
Of course I wouldn’t, just as I wouldn’t be OK with her dating all sorts of other folks. That doesn’t have anything to do with whether the guy can be or should be supported by those around him.
There really wasn’t anything we’d recognize as “secular” until relatively recently. And it certainly wasn’t bands of rampaging atheists (or Catholics, or Lutherans, or Episcopalians) going around lynching blacks for getting “too uppity”, or “looking at the white women”, or some such nonsense.
Yep.; you’re right. Religion has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
There are good (if sick) reasons why groups like the KKK place “god” in such high esteem while they do everything possible to to make religionists look bad to us non-religionists…
. . . so, because the KKK emphasizes religion, therefore, all religious folks are KKK equivalents? There’s some genius right there, Mike.
Bruce, you are unbelievably boring.
Can someone explain to me this whole concept of being “saved” so that anything you do afterwards is forgiven by God?
Weirdly, I think part of the motivation for Protestants coming up with that was to escape the corrupt practice of buying indulgences. They were saying, no there’s not salvation by giving the money church or praying X amount of times, but by embracing Jesus. Taken to its logical conclusion, the concept of works got wiped off the map entirely.
But I don’t ever read too much into the link of theology and actual behavior. The Calvinists, for instance, had a theology that would, on its surface, seem like an excuse to just go crazy and do whatever you want, because god had predetermined your salvation anyway. But they clearly didn’t behave that way. Fundies don’t excuse criminal behavior amongst themselves for solid theological reasons. It really does seem more to be the whole “we’re special” thinking. I’d like to see a cross-cultural study comparing theology to practice; I’d bet you’d see that there’s not all that much linkage between actual behavior and what you’d predict from theology.
Amanda, did you see this Dear Abby column a couple of days ago?
“Non-Denominational” is a codeword for “super special nutty fundie,” btw.
I used to work in a gay-welcoming chapel on a university campus. Because it was a public space, we had people in and out all the time. I had to be constantly on guard for the people who would leave Chick tracts displayed prominently in our literature racks, to whisk them away before someone thought we were endorsing their nastiness…
It wasn’t contrition. He didn’t say he hoped God would forgive him; he said God had forgiven him so everyone else should too. Big difference.
Also, yeah, boring.
Having gone to (decidedly un-Evangelical; objectionable for a whole different set of reasons) Episcopal schools, I take exception to your usurping the phrase “country-club religion.”
That would be Episcopalianism. The Connecticut of Religions ™.
Wait, that’s pretty good. Okay, you can have the country-club line.
For the record, Episcopalians never “hunted darkies,” in the parlance of this thread.
Far too tacky.
Alice Donut rulez!
My kids have been collecting Chick Tracts, including ones aimed at children. Nobody ever asks me if I want them to see this crap before handing them over, but it’s okay because my boys think they are a ridiculous hoot.
They even freaked out some fundies by trying to “convert” one of their tract-pushing kids to atheism at the Oregon State Fair! I hung back from our 2:30 pm rendezvous point just to watch the fun. Somehow, it’s okay to use your kids to push your warped religious agenda by handing kid-oriented bullshit to other kids - but blasphemous and wrong when those kids try to engage them in the illogic of what they are peddling and testify as to their own views of the world.
There are two kinds of people, the Elect and the Damned. The Elect are chosen by God for salvation and the Damned are chosen for eternal torment. The sinner’s actions are effectively irrelevant.
When I learned about Calvin in my college religion classes (Catholic college), it triggered my first, “Wow, that makes God a serious asshole!” moment.
I basically ended up with the cornerstone of my personal theology: God is not an asshole. Simply put, it’s the idea that any theological premise that results in the conclusion that God is an asshole must be false.
It’s a great measuring stick. If you posit that your opponent’s premise makes God an asshole, and your opponent is OK with that, you know not to hang around that person anymore.
‘Cause anyone who willingly worships an asshole is not someone you want to associate with.
In my experience, it’s almost uniformly the other way around - cultural practices get incorporated into the theology. Sometimes this is expressed in the idea that God wants you to eat fish at least once a week; sometimes it’s expressed in the idea that blacks are descended from Cain and deserving of enslavement.
“Of course I wouldn’t, just as I wouldn’t be OK with her dating all sorts of other folks. That doesn’t have anything to do with whether the guy can be or should be supported by those around him.”
But, but, Bruce! By your own standards (“Well, actually, you’re OK with the fundies, and with the rest of us, for that matter, until your convicted.”), since OJ was not convicted (in the criminal trial), he must be pure as the driven snow. Unless the rules are different for brown people…
“Yep.; you’re right. Religion has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.”
Reading comprehension problems, Bruce? Everybody was religious back then - and religion was at the heart of justifications for keeping and promoting slavery. Your “good book” is jam-packed with hints and tips on making a good slave/owner relationship. In fact, far from condemning slavery, the bible actually enabled/enables slavery.
Later, after slavery was abolished in the US, religion was still used by people to justify lynchings and other despicable behavior towards Blacks.
“. . . so, because the KKK emphasizes religion, therefore, all religious folks are KKK equivalents? There’s some genius right there, Mike.”
Never said that as you can see for yourself. My point is that groups like the KKK and other Neo-Nazi racists and fellow travelers find things in christianity that are very appealing, and keep them coming back for more.
Not all christians are in the KKK or equivalent.
However, all KKK or equivalent groups ARE “christians” (at least in the US).
This fact may not please you, and it may be something you wish to de-emphasize, but nevertheless, it is true - and quite fascinating to those of us who stand on the sidelines and laugh at all religionists…
Ham. We’re all descended from Cain.
I do think there’s a pretty high freak level in fundamentalism, as shown by diaper-wearing David Vitter, male-whore-fucking Ted Haggard, and bathroom surfing Larry Craig, but it’s a bit of a chicken and egg question. Are they freaks because they’re fundamentalists, or do they become fundamentalists to try and use religion to hold their freakiness in check?
Given how many fundamentalist (and Catholic) churches seem to think you can “pray the gay away,” i suspect it’s B. Of course, they then go on to fuck up a bunch of other’s peoples’ lives who try to follow impossible rules, which is what makes them so morally repugnant.
I think it’s A for the most part, mnemosyne. Fundamentalism forces people to live under an unhealthy set of suppositions. Their freakish behavior, often in the sexual realm, is the acne that results from fundamentalism’s chocolate. (Christ, somebody shoot me for that one.)
In the case of public figures like politicians, who scarcely fart without elaborate calculation and triangulation, it’s probably B for the most part.
zuzu: Can someone explain to me this whole concept of being “saved” so that anything you do afterwards is forgiven by God? Maybe it’s just because I was raised Catholic, and taught that you always have to work for your place in the afterlife, but I’ve never really understood how someone becomes “saved,” or how anyone verifies that, or what have you.
Well, coming from mainstream Methodism, forgiveness by god does not mean forgiveness from temporal consequences or penance. So if you are serving a life term for a crime, that’s still your burden if you have been saved. In addition there is this notion that if you have been truly saved by the blood of the lamb, that you are now guided by the Holy Spirit and are expected to not sin again. If you do fall from grace, it’s easy to get back in though.
When I was an episcopalian, for what it’s worth, my theology teacher explained that the whole “justification by faith” thing worked because, if you truly believed that you had been saved, you’d just automatically do good works out of gratitude, because you knew good works would make god happy.
This sounds pretty darn stupid from a cynical outside point of view — “I’ve just gotten an eternal get-out-of-jail-free card, so I’m never going to do anything to need it!” — but anyone who’s been in love can testify to how such a loony idea may actually work. Sometimes you do cool things for the one you love, not because you’re going to get some material payback for it, but just because you want to do cool things for the one you love. (Of course, sometimes you do really screwed-up things for the one you love, and that’s even before getting to the people who don’t actually love anybody at all…)
I love the response some bishop gave when a fundie ran up and asked him if he was saved. “Well, what do you mean? Have I been saved, am I being saved, or will I be saved?”
Tenses sometimes get screwed around (especially with translations), but it’s actually a present continuous sort of notion, rather than past tense. This whole concept of a ‘get out of jail free card’ is nonesense. You aren’t saved once and then you’re all good. You have to be saved every time you sin, and to be saved it requires honest repentance. It takes effort and commitment and a desire to be free of sin.
Not that I really go in that direction myself as far as theology goes, but that’s pretty much my understanding of the way it supposedly works.
So, we have fundamentalist Christians hunting down and killing African-Americans . . . and we’re all blind to it. Do they hunt in packs, singing Onward Christian Soldiers?
Yes. With white sheets on, with holes poked out for the eyes.
So . . . a congressman behaves badly and that proves what, exactly?
Not his behavior, but the response. Solicitation of sex is a crime in both of the areas he confessed to doing it, Bruce. But the second Vitter expressed the forgiveness of God, nobody seemed to remember that he had just confessed to a crime, and that maybe something should be done about that.
I’m surprised that nobody has yet mentioned that in the original Lisa tract, the father turns to watching porn and raping his daughter because after being fired, he’s ashamed that his wife has to support the family. Stay-at-home fatherhood and wounded masculinity are portrayed as the root causes of the whole sordid situation.
Then the dad gets an injection of manly self-esteem at the doctor’s and hurries home to tell his wife that if she prays real hard, Jesus will forgive her for being molested as a child and working her ass off to feed her family.
I mean, wow.
I can pretty much guarantee that none of the folks running around claiming that they are saved or insisting that others be will agree with me, but this is the way that “saved” makes sense to me - and the way I personally experienced it.
Generally, one starts from a point that it is all about rules, about the Book, about obedience to authority - pretty much most of the things everyone considers to be “religion” in the first place. Under this paradigm, it is all about judgment and punishment, about breaking rules and getting condemned to hell, about being “sinners in the hands of an angry God, suspended like spiders over the flames of hell” and all that.
But the salvation experience, however it comes about, usually by hitting some sort of personal bottom where you realize that a) you really do believe in God and b) there is no fucking way in hell you can follow all the rules, is a fundamental (sorry about the word choice) shift from a set of rules to a personal relationship.
You’re “saved” and “can’t ever lose it” or however one wants to express it, because suddenly you are in a personal relationship with the one who makes the rules in the first place. Someone once explained it as “if you knew you were deeply loved by the person who has the keys to the grocery store, would you ever worry about starving?”
The clincher for me, though is that the realization has to be accompanied by the realization that it applies to everybody else equally. Anyone who claims that they are saved and anyone else isn’t simply doesn’t get it. Again, I realize that discounts the vast majority of people who claim to be saved.
The shift to “saved” is the realization that it is utterly stupid to claim to believe in someone who loves you, runs the Universe, is all-powerful, and has all eternity to work in, but is prepared to flip you into eternal torment for any reason whatsoever, much less the BS reasons most of these clowns push.
10 to life.
What’s the problem?
But, but, Bruce! By your own standards (“Well, actually, you’re OK with the fundies, and with the rest of us, for that matter, until your convicted.”), since OJ was not convicted (in the criminal trial), he must be pure as the driven snow. Unless the rules are different for brown people…
When it comes to OJ’s standing before the law, yeah, the dude was and is OK. For my daughter, that are ALL SORT of dudes that aren’t OK and “brown” has nothing to do with it, BTW.
Reading comprehension problems, Bruce?
LOL. Hardly.
Everybody was religious back then
Well, then that clears things right up. Religion must be responsible for just about every evil ever extant aong men. Because it existed back then.
and religion was at the heart of justifications for keeping and promoting slavery. Your “good book” is jam-packed with hints and tips on making a good slave/owner relationship. In fact, far from condemning slavery, the bible actually enabled/enables slavery.
“Jam-packed” might be a bit of hyperbole, but yes, slavery is discussed in the Old Testament. Why? Uh, well, because slavery was an accepted, understood condition at the time. Makes sense that it would be discussed. Certainly, it was used to justify slavery, just as the Bible has been used to justify all sorts of “bad” things. It’s a tough read and it requires a wise person.
But, ya know, we aren’t talking a bunch of mid-19th century southerners here; we’re talkin’ fundies. I don’t recall any of THEM justifying slavery in any form. How ’bout you?
Later, after slavery was abolished in the US, religion was still used by people to justify lynchings and other despicable behavior towards Blacks.
Yep, religion has been and is being used to justify all sorts of bad, bad things (you must be a Christopher Hitchens fan). Now, because some morons do bad things and hide behind The Good Book, does that mean The Good Book is a bad thing and that all those who read it and believe in it are also bad?
Never said that as you can see for yourself. My point is that groups like the KKK and other Neo-Nazi racists and fellow travelers find things in christianity that are very appealing, and keep them coming back for more.
And that says what, exactly, about religion, genius?
Not all christians are in the KKK or equivalent.
However, all KKK or equivalent groups ARE “christians” (at least in the US).
This fact may not please you, and it may be something you wish to de-emphasize, but nevertheless, it is true - and quite fascinating to those of us who stand on the sidelines and laugh at all religionists…
That fact means nothing to me. The KKK is an evil organization and they use religion to justify their stupidty. They’re also white. Should I be ashamed of my race, too?
Let’s grab that broad brush and go nutty with it. We’ve got animal rights groups blowing up McDonald’s in my neck of the woods. Therefore, all animal rights groups are terrorists.
Mike, where’d ya go to school? There seems to be something lacking in your education, bud.
So, we have fundamentalist Christians hunting down and killing African-Americans . . . and we’re all blind to it. Do they hunt in packs, singing Onward Christian Soldiers?
Yes. With white sheets on, with holes poked out for the eyes.
My bad, Chet. See, I’d never heard that the KKK only accepts applications from fundies and that all fundies must be members of the KKK. Conflate much?
So . . . a congressman behaves badly and that proves what, exactly?
Not his behavior, but the response. Solicitation of sex is a crime in both of the areas he confessed to doing it, Bruce. But the second Vitter expressed the forgiveness of God, nobody seemed to remember that he had just confessed to a crime, and that maybe something should be done about that.
Bad on the DA that didn’t prosecute. NOT bad on an entire class of people who roundly reject the notion that their status as Christians exempts them from the demands of the law.
“My bad, Chet. See, I’d never heard that the KKK only accepts applications from fundies and that all fundies must be members of the KKK.”
You’re right Bruce! Claiming that The Klan and the Neo-Nazi’s only accept applications from fundies is SO wrong.
It totally discounts the large Catholic and Jewish membership in those groups. AND what about all the African-Americans who’ve been accepted with open arms? Won’t anybody think of them?…
And you claim “There seems to be something lacking in your [MikeEss’s] education, bud”? Wow…
You’re right Bruce! Claiming that The Klan and the Neo-Nazi’s only accept applications from fundies is SO wrong.
It totally discounts the large Catholic and Jewish membership in those groups.
Well, then it MUST be a Crhistian organization, then! I haven’t checked its membership in the National Council of Churches recently, but I’m sure they’ve got it.
And it completely misses the point. The fact that such a group claims Christianity or Chrisitan roots does not mean that all Christians are racist.
AND what about all the African-Americans who’ve been accepted with open arms? Won’t anybody think of them?…
LOL. Well, that would defeat the purpose of being anti-black, now, wouldn’t it?
Seriously, Mike. I’m curious where you went or are going to school. Are you a student now?
Mike,
Please don’t feed the troll. It has gotten boring.
printf function GetSarcasm("Bruce", "AND what about all the African-Americans who’ve been accepted with open arms?");[result] Bruce: Failure to GetSarcasm, check i/o stream to subject processor
So Bruce, a church has to be part of the National Council of Churches in order to be considered a Christian Organization? Because I’m pretty sure the Catholics would have objections to that.
“Please don’t feed the troll. It has gotten boring”
Sorry, I get caught up in the moment…
Actually, Bruce considered the sarcasm idiotic.
So Bruce, a church has to be part of the National Council of Churches in order to be considered a Christian Organization? Because I’m pretty sure the Catholics would have objections to that.
Certainly, and the NOC would also reject the KKK’s application . . . which was sort of the point. Concluding that all Christians are racists because the KKK is also . . . yikes! You are SCARY people!!
Helen, trolling is one thing. Debate is another. The minute I start saying you’re momma’s ugly, then ya might have a point.
Flabbergasting that such an important social movement such as y’all’s can’t bear any real scrutiny.
(will cease as well)
Quick question…
Who here believes that all Christians are as racist as your average KKK member?
That’s fair. I always like having the last word. ;}
Let’s call this little debate over . . . and won. I’ll keep my eye out for any further lunacy from Amanda and y’all . . . and I’ll comment on it.
You’re welcome to comment or no. Makes no difference to me. I don’t at all mind making someone look the fool without comment from said someone.
Quick question…
Who here believes that all Christians are as racist as your average KKK member?
Better question: Who here believes there’s any value in discussing the connection between the Ford Focus and genocide in Darfur?
I’m SURE some of those guys are driving Ford Focuses, so the Focus MUST be an inherently racist vehicle.
I remember reading the Lisa comic a while back and being absolutely amazed at the doctor’s failure to contact social services right away, instead offering to “heal the soul” of the father who was molesting the little girl.
If your family physician is a nutty fundie who believes that the first response to discovering that a dude has sexually abused a child and given her an incurable STD, you’re not going to have them as your family doctor unless you yourself are a nutty fundie, because somehow I doubt that that special flavor of nuttiness is something that lays in wait for the moment that a dad gives his daughter herpes. If I was seeing a family doctor and he started asking me about Jesus while he had me on the examination table, I’d get up and leave and find another doctor.
But whatever. It’s a Chick Tract, not a Graham Greene novel. Gaping plotholes are what makes them work.
I guess “Lisa” isn’t actually in production anymore, and I wonder if it did cross a line for nutty fundies. It’s all wonderful to imagine God forgiving the child molester and the tract’s insinuation that Jesus’s forgiveness will keep him out of jail so long as he stops giving his little girl STDs, but I wonder if a few of them stopped and thought “what if one of the dads at my church did something like this? Jesus may forgive him for what he’s done, but do I really want him around my daughter?” Because fundies can be very pie-in-the-sky when it comes to forgiveness unless it might put them at risk. So I just wonder if the tract actually had something of a negative reaction within the flock, as it were, and Chick publications decided to yank it because it was turning more people off of Christianism by implying that the dude singing a little too loud in the pew next to you is a child molester.
Hey, MikeEss, who’s this asshole in the flightsuit and stuffed codpiece declaring Mission Accomplished?
For Zuzu, fwiw, regarding salvation;
being saved is a worrisome concept pretty specific to the great awakenings that occurred in the US 200 years ago, and now institutionalized into the radical protestantism prevalent in modern american christianity.
It requires a belief in sin, heaven and hell.
a) all people are sinful except the Christ
b) the death and resurrection of the Christ act as a permanent sacrifice (see stone age middle eastern culture for concept of animal sacrifice to absolve human iniquity) for all humans.
c) salvation requires an acceptance of this “gift from God” in the sacrifice of the Christ; in effect punching your ticket for heaven.
d) many fundementalist/evangelicals now believe it is their MOST IMPORTANT JOB EVER to convince people this makes logical sense.
A lot of this is prooftexted straight out of a letter an itinerant preacher named Paul wrote to a bunch of followers living in Rome, in an effort to get them on the same page as another group of followers living in Jerusalem in the mid 1st century CE. YMMV
for the troll: religion has a nasty way of defending and rationalizing evil; something to think about, neh?
Mighty Ponygirl, I’m glad you asked!
That is Commander Codpiece!, Protector of Mankind, Scourge of Islam, Terrifier of Terrorists, Friend of The Little Guy, a Genuine Son Of Texas, Owner and Operator of a Real Actual Ranch, and a Great Guy to Have A Beer With!!!
He should have his own comic book series. Of course, he probably wouldn’t be able to READ that comic book series, but…
Hey, MikeEss, who’s this asshole in the flightsuit and stuffed codpiece declaring Mission Accomplished?
Um, I thought y’all were gonna ignore the troll. See, using operant conditioning to extinguish unwanted behavior requires NO feedback. Any little feedback like this might be just enough to get the troll going again.
for the troll: religion has a nasty way of defending and rationalizing evil; something to think about, neh?
Can be and has been used for that purpose. However, that does not mean that evil is religion’s sole purpose, nor does it mean that all religionists use it as justification for evil.
Scourge of Islam!
Hey I like that.
My real beef here is that of course that’s NOT actually the case, which is a shame.
I find it funny that more than often, the arguments here bascially boil down to which kind of letter behind a name is best “suited” (speaking of that) to usher in big government. Which both parties tend to do.
Its just that one of them likes to blow holes in the decapitators and Allah Knows Best crowd, which is fine, and I take the bright spots whence I find them.
Mike, you are an amazingly absurd creature.
I have a pet caiman who responds better to the world.
And unlike most secularists and liberals, she actually believes in defending the Nest.
Mike, tell me more about Commander Codpiece. Is he so dense that light cannot escape his surface?
Not to encourage the troll(s), but how about the rapist/murderer releasing Huckabee?
Huckabee’s actions raise larger questions about his views on crime and punishment. Critics, and some friends, too, have said Huckabee’s position was deeply influenced by his Christian faith. “When I first met him, I was going through his positions on issues and I said, ‘You’re a conservative, so I’m sure you oppose granting parole for violent felons,’“ Dick Morris, the campaign consultant who ran Huckabee’s first run for lieutenant governor, told me. “And he said, ‘Oh no, I would never take that position, because the concept of Christian duty requires that there is a possibility of forgiveness. The concept of Christian forgiveness requires that we keep open the process of parole — use it sparingly, but keep it open.’“
Not to encourage the troll(s), but how about the rapist/murderer releasing Huckabee?
I’m no fan of Huckabee’s, but I did hear him explain it. Apparently, it was a terrible mistake and he acknowledged it as such. Huckabee made a guess about the man’s rehabilitation and the man killed again.
Now, I think you’ll allow that an individual’s beliefs inform his actions. If a man is a Christian and Christianity advocates a principle of foregiveness, then a Christian man might be more inclined to be foregiving. That Huckabee, a Crhistian, would remain open to the sparing use of clemency and parole neither surpises nor alarms me.
“Mike, tell me more about Commander Codpiece. Is he so dense that light cannot escape his surface?”
Not only that, but it’s completely impossible for any facts or logic to penetrate his outer defenses.
The only things he can be persuaded to do (indeed the only things he CAN do) are to ask for more tax cuts, invade other countries (but ONLY if they have lots of oil), spy on every human on earth, especially Americans (who need LOTS of spying), and authorize the use of torture on our enemies. Oh, and decide who our enemies are.
And Richard Bruce Cheney is his BESTEST FRIEND in the Whole World!!!
Also, many people don’t know this, but Commander Codpiece is the Only Man In History to emerge onto the surface of the earth A Fully Formed 40-Year Old! It’s True! There was no Commander Codpiece for 40-years, and then all of sudden, he was here, sharing his goodness and greatness with all the peoples of the world!!!…
Plus, he can TOTALLY beat up any other dad out there!…
My bad, Chet. See, I’d never heard that the KKK only accepts applications from fundies and that all fundies must be members of the KKK. Conflate much?
Who’s conflating? Besides you, I mean, by your assertions that there’s no overlap between the KKK and fundamentalist religion.
The simple fact is that members of the KKK are fundamentalist Christians, you have to be to get in, and to any reasonable person that speaks volumes about the fundamentalist Christian relationship to minorities.
NOT bad on an entire class of people who roundly reject the notion that their status as Christians exempts them from the demands of the law.
What class is that, Bruce? It certainly wasn’t Vitter and it certainly wasn’t the local law enforcement in Washington DC. What’s your point, exactly? That you, Bruce, can personally speak for the beliefs of all Christians in America?
Regarding women who have abortions being excused from being charged with murder, it’s pretty obvious that this would flip immediately should the fundies get their Gilead.
Not necessarily immediately. I recall a plausible argument about the development of the Final Solution in Germany (note NOT a Godwin invocation - comment about bureaucracy). The theory was that it didn’t develop as a full-blown plan, but that the logical end was implicit in the ideology and that the actual policy developed as departmental competition after the Wannsee Conference.
Death by iterated statements of intent.
I actually think that the drive to feel persecuted, and to be scorned, and to console yourself by reminding yourself that YOU’RE going to heaven while THEY’RE going to Hell is a primary drive in fundies.
Bingo. Yelling at them, laughing at them, etc. just feeds their superiority complexes. If you really want to unnerve them, be friendly, with that air of detached and slightly patronizing superiority that you would use if a little child told you that he had an imaginary friend (”mm-hmm, that’s interesting, dear)”.
Who’s conflating? Besides you, I mean, by your assertions that there’s no overlap between the KKK and fundamentalist religion.
. . . just as there’s an overlap between men and rape. Therefore all men are rapists, without any redeeming qualities? So what if there’s an overlap?
The simple fact is that members of the KKK are fundamentalist Christians, you have to be to get in, and to any reasonable person that speaks volumes about the fundamentalist Christian relationship to minorities.
Not THIS reasonable person. We have one extremely small, relatively insignificant group that requires Christianity for membership . . . and any fundmentalist Christian is a racist? Ya have to be a dude to join NAMBLA . . . therefore all men are pederasts?
What class is that, Bruce? It certainly wasn’t Vitter and it certainly wasn’t the local law enforcement in Washington DC.
Um, one case proves your point (if your read of the facts of the case are accurate)? That’s pretty thin ice, Chet.
What’s your point, exactly? That you, Bruce, can personally speak for the beliefs of all Christians in America?
Oh, heavens no. However, I CAN observe and research and my observations indicate NO statistically significant correlation between racism and Christianity. The KKK and other fringe racist movements number possible 10,000 members (the KKK is currently no more than 5,000), many of which are NOT religious in any way and if they are, they’re just as likely to be Pagans as Christians. Moreover, every last one of ‘em is roundly criticized, rejected, and shunned by mainstream Christians . . . “fundies”included.
Therefore all men are rapists, without any redeeming qualities?
Therefore what? Again with your ridiculous conflations.
We have one extremely small, relatively insignificant group that requires Christianity for membership . . . and any fundmentalist Christian is a racist?
Who ever said anything about “any”? You’re arguing with a strawman, Brucie.
But to any reasonable person, the fact that the KKK draws its membership exclusively from fundamentality Christianity is significant and supports Marcotte’s statements above - you know, the ones you thought were so incomprehensible.
Um, one case proves your point (if your read of the facts of the case are accurate)?
Which facts do you dispute, Brucie? The nationally-televised confession to solicitation? The lack of any prosecutorial action towards David Vitter, which is a matter of public record? His public statements that he had the forgiveness of God?
Precisely which facts are you disputing, Brucie?
However, I CAN observe and research and my observations indicate NO statistically significant correlation between racism and Christianity.
Really? Show your math, Bruce. Precisely what was the correlative value you determined? What was the size of your sample? What testing model did you use?
I mean, you wouldn’t be so idiotic as to assert “no statistical correlation” without actually having measured any of the statistics, right?
I think a lot of us would like to see your data and methods - particularly the authors of a number of books that found racism and fundamentalism intimately connected.
Who ever said anything about “any”? You’re arguing with a strawman, Brucie.
Brucie, eh? OK . . . Chetie.
But to any reasonable person, the fact that the KKK draws its membership exclusively from fundamentality Christianity is significant and supports Marcotte’s statements above - you know, the ones you thought were so incomprehensible.
We’re talkin’ 5,000 people in this entire country. It says NOTHING about fundmantal Christians and Christianity and EVERYTHING about the KKK.
Again, should a MUCH stronger correlation between animal rights groups and “animal rights terrorism” say something significant about animal rights groups? Not in MY book. The vast majority of them are reasonable, law-abiding folks with a position that’s important to them.
There’s NOTHING reasonable about Amanda’s assertion that fundies like fryin’ the darkies.
mean, you wouldn’t be so idiotic as to assert “no statistical correlation” without actually having measured any of the statistics, right?
Of course not. How about you? Your sources thoroughly vetted? Peer reviewed? Universally accepted as statistically sound?
There’s all sort of lunacy out there. Just ‘cause someon wrote a book . . . A pair of kids made a movie called “Loose Change.” That doesn’t mean 9/11 was an inside job.
Really? Show your math, Bruce. Precisely what was the correlative value you determined? What was the size of your sample? What testing model did you use?
Well, Chet, I’d love to, but a) Y’ALL made the assertion that there’s a correlation. It’s up to Y’ALL to support it. b) I’d be just as successful arguing with you about black helicopters and little green aliens, which I’m sure you also believe in.
I’m happy with NO major media source, research agency, university, sociologist, or other form of social scientist on the safe side of lunatic making any such claim. And yes, the implication is that you are on the UNsafe side of lunatic.
Hey, Chetie. There’s a significant correlation between drug use and liberal politics. Therefore, we need to discuss y’all as a dangerous, fundmanetally flawed component of our social fabric of which the rest of us should be scared stiff.
That one makes about as much sense.
I’ve come to the conclusion that, overall, I don’t have a problem with the idea of salvation through faith. I think that it’s not true, but I mean I don’t have a moral problem with it — at least, so long as people are willing to work through its implications fully.
If we take salvation through faith to its furthest extreme, we could say that one’s morality is totally irrelevant to the hereafter — the only thing that matters is whether you accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior. Sociopathic murderer and selfless humanitarian who accept Jesus Christ — both saved. Sociopathic murderer and selfless humanitarian who don’t — both damned.
Yet ultimately, all that means as far as morality goes — real, true morality, not just asking God for forgiveness — is that there is no tangible, external reward for morality: that the point of doing the right thing is to get the right thing done, not to please God in the hopes that He will reward you.
I’m fine with that, in the end. That’s what I already think as an atheist.
In this case, “accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior so you can go to heaven” is prudential advice, along the lines of “save for retirement so your retirement won’t suck” or “don’t drink too much or you’ll get a hangover,” not a moral imperative along the lines of “don’t molest children” or “help people in need.”
Now, it’s bad prudential advice, since it’s very unlikely that heaven or hell exist, but it’s not morally egregious. It’s orthogonal to morality, in a different dimension, but it’s perfectly compatible with morality as I see it.
It says NOTHING about fundmantal Christians and Christianity and EVERYTHING about the KKK.
Sure. And one of the things it says is that the KKK is not so dumb that they don’t know the difference between fruitful and barren soils; hence, they don’t recruit on college campuses in Berkley, they recruit from the churches of the south. The churches that, historically, defended black slavery on Biblical principles.
There’s NOTHING reasonable about Amanda’s assertion that fundies like fryin’ the darkies.
Except, of course, the correlation between religiosity and support for the death penalty, particularly in southern areas, combined with the inescapable fact that that death penalty is disproportionately applied to people of color.
Of course not.
So let’s see the math, Brucie. Your assertion, you defend it.
Therefore, we need to discuss y’all as a dangerous, fundmanetally flawed component of our social fabric of which the rest of us should be scared stiff.
Only if you accept all “drug use” as a fundamental danger to society. How was your morning coffee?
Julian: “Now, it’s bad prudential advice, since it’s very unlikely that heaven or hell exist, but it’s not morally egregious. It’s orthogonal to morality, in a different dimension, but it’s perfectly compatible with morality as I see it.”
I’d say it’s bad prudential advice even if heaven and hell do exist. I completely agree that morality is a separate thing entirely, and that moral grownups do the right thing simply because it is the right thing, not because of any fear of punishment, divine or otherwise.
I’ve never understood the claim to have decided to believe something, anyway, which is why I am a believer who has no issue whatsoever with non-believers. I can’t fault someone not believing in something that makes no sense to them, especially when there is no compelling proof to the contrary.
I can, however, fault the morons who claim to believe something in the face of compelling counter-evidence, and take it even further and claim moral superiority because of their “faith” - the creationists and Biblical literalists, for example.
I have trouble wrapping my head around a Deity that would be pleased with being told “I decided to believe in you because I was afraid not to.” I can only imagine a Deity who isn’t bothered by “It didn’t make any sense to me, so I moved on with my life and did the best I knew how.”
Peter, I find admirable your moral rejection of the doctrine of hell, emphasis on the importance of evidence, and your acknowledgment that belief is not a choice. I hope you take the message to your co-religionists. There is a distinct possibility that doing so may improve the world in some small measure for us all.
Peter reminded me of Anne Lamott’s famous quote (slightly paraphrased):
“You know that you’ve made God in your own image when it turns out that He hates all of the same people you do.”