The (g)odless Inaugural Prayer
Praying to the Spirit in the Sky…
If President Obama’s goal with the inaugural prayers was to marginalize and offend devout, conservative Christians and orthodox Jews, it would be fair to say: mission accomplished.
The choice of Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, departed from historical protocol. She was the first female and first non-clergy member to lead an inaugural prayer. She did so in the wake of Pastor Louie Giglio’s unceremonious removal from the dais after the discovery he had preached a sermon 20 years ago expositing the Bible’s position on homosexuality. While it’s understandable that Evers-Williams would feel the need to temper her prayers, lest the current administration banish her from future public speaking engagements, her words represent a stunning departure from historical inaugural prayers and from anything resembling a Christian, Jewish, or even a generic Judeo-Christian prayer.
Evers-Williams, when asked to describe her religious affiliation by Religion News Service, said,
I have been Baptist, I have been Methodist, I have been Presbyterian. I have attended all of those churches depending on where I have lived in my life.
The answer seems rather dodgy, but nothing out of the ordinary, so when her “prayer” began as something of an announcement, we waited for the “prayer” part to begin:
America, we are here, our nation’s Capitol on this January the 21st 2013, the inauguration of our 45th [editor’s note, should be 44th] president Barack Obama.
And we waited some more…
We come at this time to ask blessings upon our leaders, the president, vice president, members of Congress, all elected and appointed officials of the United States of America. We are here to ask blessings upon our armed forces, blessings upon all who contribute to the essence of the American spirit, the American dream. The opportunity to become whatever our mankind, womankind, allows us to be. This is the promise of America.
Was this a prayer or a speech? If it was a prayer, note that Mrs. Evers-Williams addressed it simply to “America,” imploring “America” to bestow blessings upon our leaders and our country.
And it became more confusing from there:
As we sing the words of belief, “this is my country,” let us act upon the meaning that everyone is included. May the inherent dignity and inalienable rights of every woman, man, boy and girl be honored. May all your people, especially the least of these, flourish in our blessed nation.
To whom is this prayer directed? Evers-Williams still hasn’t given any indication, other than to begin simply with “America, comma.” And again, near the end of the speech, she quotes the words of a hymn and appears to be addressing “America” rather than a deity:
There’s something within me that holds the reins. There’s something within me that banishes pain. There’s something within me I cannot explain. But all I know America, there is something within. There is something within.
Finally, about halfway through the speech, after invoking the “spirit of our ancestors” in the civil rights movement, Evers-Williams gives a quick shout-out to… something:
One hundred fifty years after the Emancipation Proclamation and 50 years after the March on Washington, we celebrate the spirit of our ancestors, which has allowed us to move from a nation of unborn hopes and a history of disenfranchised [votes] to today’s expression of a more perfect union. We ask, too, almighty that where our paths seem blanketed by [throngs] of oppression and riddle by pangs of despair we ask for your guidance toward the light of deliverance. And that the vision of those that came before us and dreamed of this day, that we recognize that their visions still inspire us. [emphasis added]
We aren’t told if it’s the “almighty” spirit of the ancestors or the “Almighty and all-merciful Lord, by Whom all powers and authorities are ordained,” the deity invoked by the archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Church at President Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961. Even so, she looks to the “visions of those that came before us” in the civil rights movement for inspiration rather than the “almighty.”
Mid-speech it seems that Evers-Williams went out of her way to exclude God when she recited a section from the Pledge of Allegiance, omitting the words “under God”:
We now stand beneath the shadow nation’s Capitol whose golden dome reflects the unity and democracy of one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
Like President Obama has done on numerous occasions, Evers-Williams engaged in selective editing to remove religious references.
In the RNS interview, Evers-Williams sheds some light on why she may have been so obtuse in her word choices about the deity (or lack thereof):
I have never been shy in mentioning my relationship with what I call God, a Spirit, and there certainly have been times over the years that I have called on him — or her, if you wish — in public. I deeply believe that there is a Supreme Being that sees us through.
That’s very similar, in fact, to Obama’s spiritual line of thinking, as he explained in a 2004 interview with Cathleen Falsani:
I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people. That there are values that transcend race or culture, that move us forward, and there’s an obligation for all of us individually as well as collectively to take responsibility to make those values lived.
Ah, the “collective” that Obama referred to in his inaugural address: “Preserving our individual freedom requires collective action.”
The vague spirituality (and the nod to collectivism) is reminiscent of the ’60s counterculture and their rejection of organized religion. It brings to mind Norman Greenbaum’s hippie folk anthem “Spirit in the Sky.” Greenbaum, a practicing Jew at the time he wrote the song, said cowboy movies inspired him to write it, explaining that: “even though I’m a bad guy, I want to redeem myself and go to heaven. I just chose the spirit in the sky. The part about Jesus was just a natural part when I put it all together.” He has also said, “It wasn’t like a Christian song of praise it was just a simple song. I had to use Christianity because I had to use something. But more important it wasn’t the Jesus part, it was the spirit in the sky.”
Never been a sinner I never sinned
I got a friend in Jesus
So you know that when I die
He’s gonna set me up with
The spirit in the sky
Oh set me up with the spirit in the sky
That’s where I’m gonna go when I die
When I die and they lay me to rest
I’m gonna go to the place that’s the best
Go to the place that’s the best
There was a sense when listening to Evers-Williams’s speech-prayer that she “just had to use something.” We get the same feeling when we listen to President Obama’s uncomfortable religious explanations.
In Evers-Williams’s prayer, just like in Greenbaum’s song, Jesus makes a token appearance:
In Jesus’ name and the name of all who are holy and right we pray. Amen.
Fortunately, the names of “all who are holy and right” are left to our imagination and we don’t have to suffer through a list of Evers-Williams’s choices.
Those of us who are Bible-believing Christians take particular offense at a civil-rights-leader-turned-pontiff adding Jesus, who was given “the name that is above every name,” to a shopping list of afterthoughts at the end of a motivational speech.
I understand that we live in a diverse land with Americans of many different faiths. No legal obligation requires the president to represent my faith or any faith on the podium at the inauguration.
However, I think it’s important to stop for a moment and note this moment in history when we first witnessed a distinct change in the nature of the inaugural prayers. Read through the modern presidential prayers and see the difference. Read the religious content of the inaugural speeches of the Founders and compare them to President Obama’s speech and you will see the stark contrast. When considering this in the context of Louie Giglio’s removal from the inaugural prayer and the many attacks on religious liberties in Obama’s first term, we must ask if our country has crossed the spiritual Rubicon.
I believe that God is in control. That President Obama serves with Almighty God’s permission; He “removes kings and sets up kings” (and presidents, too). That should make the president tremble, and I hope and pray that he realizes the implications of that verse. The president has the prayers of my family and my church.
After listening to the inaugural prayer, I needed a spiritual shower. If you feel that way too, you might enjoy refocusing on God with a good helping of Phillips, Craig and Dean’s “Revelation Song.” If you’re not familiar with the song, it’s from Revelation 4, the apostle John’s vision of God on the throne in heaven. It may be just what you need after a 24-hour news cycle of Obama worship.
At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.
And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,
“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!”
*****
Previously from Paula Bolyard at PJ Lifestyle:
does anyone else think that the lady O looks incredibly like a young Tina Turner? She appears to be very uncomfortable in a somber event like this, more than likely itching to be shimming and shaking on some stage to Proud Mary.
I thought she borrowed that costume and hairstyle from the villain in a bad science-fiction movie.
I wish you all would leave The First Lady out of this. It make you seem really petty when you take lot shots at her. It was disgusting when Liberals did it with Barbara and Laura Bush, and it is equally disguising here.
naw…when the talk turns to murder, sex things and stuff like that, then I will agree with you that it’s disgusting…right now it’s all just good clean fun , but then remember that liberals have absolutely no sense of humor. At all.
Did not see many conservatives on this site laughing when Palin was the brunt of the jokes, nor did I notice my conservative peers enjoying liberal pokes at Barbara or Laura Bush. Sure, liberals have a sense of humor, they just are not laughing at the same things you are. But I will take it for what it is then. This is just good fun. At least the Obama girls are off limits. The Bush girls and Chelsea were not so lucky.
@Chuckiecheese – Chelsea Clinton was absolutely off limits – she’s STILL off limits. The Bush girls were in the press all the time. Bar tenders would call the police (and the press) when they tried to use fake ID. Not something that happens to regular folk.
What was said about Palin (especially her keeping her Downs son) was beyond despicable. THEN they went after her minor children.
Michelle Obama opens her big yap at every opportunity and deserves to be made fun of. She couldn’t even be civil enough to sit through a meal without ROLLING her wooki eyes at Bohner, so SPARE us your false sanctimony.
And no – it’s not hate.
So, all those highly-paid comedians have no sense of humor? Classic.
Thank GOD for the second time in her adult life she was proud of her country.
Michelle Obama is no sweet innocent little lamb.
2004 Mooch fundraising letter defends partial-birth abortion
They have to keep from offending the Secular Humanists and the Muslims that are becoming their key voting demographics.
It’s also a little in-your-face on their part to keep their base amped up and interested, just enough red meat for the true-progressive-believers to keep them engaged.
I suspect Barack Obama’s real god is political expediency…Barack is what he needs to be at any moment at any moment in time; same with Bill Clinton, and the same with Al Gore.
I refuse to watch anything of the inauguration, but you would have to live under a rock to miss the entirety of any Leftist inauguration in America. Even watching basketball on ESPN, Barack Obama was nauseatingly mentioned. Our local paper trumpeted the glory.
I also suspect that same prayer has be parroted many a time at any Unitarian Church and most certainly at any public graduation which I have heard with my own ears for the unknown god, possibly with reference to the “Christian” Bible. My friend recently attended a funeral at our resident Lost Souls Unitarian Church and informed me they announced along with a Walt Whitman reading, a reading from the ‘Christian’ Bible.
Is there another that I’m unaware?
But I do indeed like you believe “for there is no authority except that which God has established.” I would add for both good and evil. I leave it to the reader to choose which one concerning Obama, only to remind them that our country’s protective hedge seems to grow more withered each passing year.
There are countless belief systems in America, and there’s a good number of conservatives who don’t believe.
Why do you feel that your Christian god deserves special treatment and special mentioning in ANY kind of political speech?
A “free” America should be run by a gov’t that does NOT get involved in any of that stuff. Believers are no more important or deserving than any other type of American who lives here and wants to live a good honest life.
The idea of the Founders was that God gives us certain eternal rights; that is, they are not subject to the whim of man or to fashions in thought or even to violence. Apparently, Obama has something else in mind for us because this signals his intention to materially alter what we Americans ordinarily think of as our rights.
You are entitled to the freedom God gave hummankind whether you are a believer or not. Would you rather trust the perfection of God or the imperfection of Man? You don’t have to believe in God; you just have to believe in the inviolability of your innate rights.
i don’t believe in god, so i don’t believe in the idea of god-given rights.
ask women, black people, or non-land owners about their “god-given rights” back during the time of the founders.
the only thing that we can count on is that over time, society almost always ends up waking up to unequal distribution of rights/freedom and correcting the issues culturally or legislatively.
because “god” certainly looked the other way for 100-200 years when it came to certain groups of people. so clearly we can’t place our trust in that idea, can we?
Then you have something in common with the God you don’t believe in. Because he doesn’t believe in your atheism either:
Romans 1:19-20
English Standard Version (ESV)
19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
When I consider what the greatest Christian who ever lived wrote and left for us, or what our Founding Fathers documented in the formation of this country, say versus what you believe, frankly what you believe becomes rather unimportant.
There’s no such thing as an atheist. There are those who believe in God and those who push away their innate knowledge of God by endlessly quoting some new bit of scientific knowledge. The more you question the latter of the origin of the universe, the more ridiculous their explanations become.
They worship a false god called Rationalism, which is at best an unsatisfying religion (as it attempts to put human reason above God). The more we discover about our universe the more we realize how much we don’t understand.
And, the constitution bars the government from making any law to establish any reigion and practice thereof, over another, or no religion. The latter is the part the radical extremist evangical movement likes to omit, aside from, the fact that the constitution starts ONLY from Article I and not where they like it to start from. They want to ignore this part of the constitution and exert its particualr brand of Christianity on all the land.
I would be far more worried about godless Secular Humanists wanting to impose their amoral views on society than your phantom “radical evangelical extremists”. The former have invaded the school system and indoctrinated our children for three generations now. Is it surprising that our society is now comprised of people that elected a smooth-voiced Marxist spewing empty platitudes?
Here’s the real radical Christian trend…keeping their children out of the corrupt and godless public school system. Rejecting churches and pastors who seek to entertain and water down God’s Word. Preaching the Gospel as the means to save people, as opposed on using the political system in a failing effort to elect the “right people” who will somehow impose morality on immoral people. Understanding that our hope doesnt lie with government, but from the saving grace of God through His son Jesus Christ.
God has this funny thing about free-will. HE allows people to make their own choices – including whether they believe in HIM or not.
You know very well that the Constitution would never have been ratified if slavery had been abolished then and there. It was a compromise. It was already on its way out so they really didn’t worry about it. Blame Eli Ehitney.
As for women, I can’t tell you how much your freakin “equality” has ruined this country! I much prefer the days when men did all the heavy lifting and took care of women. You teach young girls to be whores who kill their children, then they end up wage slaves the rest of their lives.
“… and in favor of giving a full and efficient protection to the rights of all classes of citizens, whether native or naturalized, both at home and abroad.”
Then read from the beginning of the 1860 GOP platform what it had to say about equality (its right at the top). Its quoted routinely on here but certainly not in context when, extremists define it, only to mean protections for their values to be exerted upon the nation. I know of NO GOP or Democrat platform that has not addressed constitutional equality and justice. Those two constitutional issues are overwhelmingly represented before the Supreme Court more than any other cases.
Womens rights are protected equally to those of men. Am I to assume you would prefer they weren’t?
I think lolly is generally bemoaning the state of women’s liberation that freed us from the aweful fate of being actual mothers to our children and wives to our husbands while he was able to go out and support us with just the sweat of his brow. Now, thanks to the feminists and equality movements, it’s very, very hard for a woman to choose to stay at home and raise her own children while the family lives just on her husband’s income. She’s also looked down upon is she openly desires to marry and settle down rather than to be “sexually liberated” by providing as much free sex to men as they could possibly want (this is in the name of liberating her of course).
Heck, you don’t have to believe in God to understand that there are certain basic rights that belong to man simply because he is. Cicero reasoned it out long before there was ever Christianity and Romans had taken to persecuting them.
And, just because human beings have certain rights that are theirs by right and not to be violated by any institution of man means that it is incumbent upon God to prevent those rights from being violated. Man has freewill and in order for man to have freewill, he must also be free to do evil which is generally the result of violating the basic rights of his fellow human beings.
The real salient point that you all are missing is that our Founders knew the nature of man. And they know that man if left to his own devices would not be civil and therefore they created a government. But this understanding of the nature of man and how power corrupts is a biblical principal regardless. It is a true principal whether you believe in God or not. Thomas Jefferson understood this. It was this understanding of human nature that lead them to be fearful of a large government. I mean these are just people and as such they are prone to the same weaknesses and faults as any other man. This understanding is what is missing in both the desire for more government and in the prayers and frankly the belief system of the liberal mind. The liberal mind does not understand or believe that mankind is best off by limiting the influence of powerful forces in our lives whether they be government of all powerful medical socialism which is coming to a town near you. And it won’t be pretty.
THIS is the problem.
eminras… “A “free” America should be run by a gov’t that does NOT get involved in any of that stuff”
…as opposed to a “free” America run by a secular, humanist gov’t that gets involved in all of that stuff and forces us to pay for abortions and bow to the god of environmentalism and social justice, your brand of “religion”. After all religion is just a set of core beliefs… a set of values. Just because you don’t adhere to the “Christian” religion, that does not mean you have no religion, you do. Your religion is just godless. The Constitution only forbids the Federal government from passing any law “establishing a state religion”. Having Christian men and women serve in government and make their faith a part of their service is no different than a nutcase environmentalist who believes in man-caused global warming infusing that belief system into government laws or having a nut-case PETA member infusing their vegetarian belief system onto all of America. Everybody has a belief system… some are based on an Almighty God who created everything and therefore gets to make the rules and some are based on making oneself a god who thinks everything came from nothing. You may be offended by a “Christian” prayer to a Christian God, but I am equally offended by the pantheistic prayer offered by this moron to the universe and to America.
… Take a breath once in a while. Your head is about to explode.
Well said.
The difference between Christens and atheists like me is that I simply disbelieve in one more god than they do (although I’m leaning toward Pastafarianism).
– Columbia the Gem of the Ocean!”
We’re currently at at hot dog stand about 30 miles past the Rubicon on route 66. By the time everyone realizes it’s over, it will have been over a long, long, time.
Sir, upon reflection, that is possible one of the most artistic comments ever posted on the internet. You do Hunter S. Thompson proud! Bravo.
and…I agree
So she’s praying to “America”? Sounds like the Italian fascist motto has already entrenched itself in the “religious” left; “Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.” And lest we forget, it was the religious liberals who paved the way for fascism in the last century. They created the intellectual soil for relativism, and godlessness by their “rational”(istic)intepretations and twistings on Biblical truth and universal absolutes.
As Mussolini said, “Everything I have said and done is these last years is relativism, by intuition. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology, and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories, and men who claim to be the bearers of an objective immortal truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than fascism.”
Diuturna (1921)
[i]imploring “America” to bestow blessings upon our leaders and our country.[/i]
All Good Citizens Revere Maximum Leader.
For me, a person telling us that they know a lot about religion because they have been in several denominations is like a person who’s married five times telling me they know about the opposite sex since they’ve lived with so many.
Wandering from denomination to denomination like you’re wandering from car lot to car lot looking for the best deal strikes me as having a water-thin faith. Not to say you have to choose a denomination and never leave. But I think that you should pretty much know what works for you by the time you settle into a church. I think the moving around is more indicative of boredom, like a person getting married several times.
That’s an excellent point, Tom T. While it often takes people some time to settle into their faith (and some never do), most people of Evers-Williams’s age have a good idea of what fits with their theological and worship preferences. It seems reasonable to expect that someone leading the nation in prayer would have settled on a set of theological propositions.
It does signal discontent, of which boredom is one of our society’s favorite forms, but it depends on the individual case. My husband was raised a Methodist, and became a Baptist, a Pentecostal, and a Presbyterian before he recognized that the problem was that he didn’t believe in Jesus. He’s doing OK as an observant Jew… hey, everyone’s gotta be someplace.
No surprise here. I’ve always known the only God ObamaRx worships is the secular God of self. Absent his political charisma he coould be diagnosed as a narcissitic sociopath.
The larger tragedy is that Faith sustained black Americans for generation after generation of dreadful existence. Generations after the end of that, Faith gave the nation, all of us, Martin Luther King’s dream. But now, the (presumptive) black leadership is saying … we don’t need G*d anymore, now that we’ve got our political triumph.
The First Black American President is tossing the community’s heritage out the window, like dust on the wind.
He has forgotten, or has never known, about whirlwinds.
What should we expect from the administration that is attempting to transform the most productive representative republic ever created by man into an autonomous, anarcho-syndicalist commune?
What were we looking for? Reverend Wright?
To the extent that this site gathers a representative sample of the current right, it shows a movement that is decidedly schizophrenic when it comes to religion. Somehow followers of the fiercely atheistic Ayn Rand bed down with evolution-denying fundamentalists and Neocons for whom God is merely a political fiction. Paul Ryan even managed to combine in his own person Objectivism with a sort of pre-Vatican II Catholicism. Well, one denizen of these threads calls himself a libertarian Zionist—he must belong to a rather original kibbutz—so I guess anything goes.
Don’t you have the same problem as the delegates to the Monarchist’s Convention? I mean it’s not enough to insist that there ought to be a king. You’ve eventually gotta pick a dynasty. And, in your case, it’s not enough to agree that the other side is just awful. Don’t you eventually have to define to some extent what you’re for? I laugh at rightists for claiming that Obama is somehow a Marxist, a Socialist, a Fascist, a Nazi, a Muslim, a Liberal, a pipsqueak, an evil genius, an Amos ‘n’ Andy character, the AntiChrist, and half a dozen other contradictory things all at once, but isn’t the deeper problem that you’re all over the place in what you support as witness your confusion about religion and the state?
It could be I’m just not an advanced enough thinker to grasp the obvious solution to this puzzle. For example, somebody once said you you cannot serve God and Mammon; but maybe you’re right and he was wrong about that.
That along with Obama’s penchant for being all things to all people if it will buy the vote were pretty easy to determine.
But the one thing we can all agree on whether atheist, neocon or saint is that there is one word that most eloquently describes Obama as President – failure. Besides you.
Heinlein got that one right:
Political tags – such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth – are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
Pay careful attention to the words he chose, back in the Day when words
still had meanings, and different words were used to distinguish meanings;
Obama is not after good government, he is after _control_. If, as is likely,
you are too young and inexperienced to have seen the Beast yourself, up close
and personal, let me assure you that a controlling person takes no pleasure
in doing good; They must do evil in order to prove their power to themselves.
Ding, ding, ding! Precisely. Exactly.
Winner, here!
Plus ten “like” (oh, this site doesn’t do that…shame)
You are your own explanation if you will but take a hard look in a mirror and learn to make simple comparisons.
Conservatism is not an ideology – it is a group of pragmatic rationalists without blinders united by the idea of being left alone and with a disdain for the monumental lie that is liberal political correctness.
Conservatism is true diversity, not one based on race and gender, as if such things come complete with hobbies and interests. There is nothing contradictory about inclusion, true inclusion, based on conviction and not skin.
If you’re looking for contradiction and hypocrisy, look no further then the Dem Party, the dual home of the people who at once cry the loudest about racism, and the ones who indulge in it the most. Convenient.
Pragmatic rationalists without blinders who, for starters, don’t believe in biological evolution or anthropogenic global warming. Pragmatic rationalists who don’t seemed to have noticed that we’re spending more on health care than any other industrialized nation and yet oppose even a partial solution to the problem though it was cooked up by Republicans. Pragmatic rationalists whose leaders cook up budget plans to shrink the deficit that would actually increase it. Yep pragmatic rationalists. I await your denunciation of indoor plumbing as a liberal plot.
Why is it that the Right has to answer for its extremists while the Left doesn’t have to answer for every nutcase with a Marxist manifesto that shoots up a theater, a Congresswoman, or sends bombs to businessmen? Or the ones that call “Racist!” like a teenaged boy yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater? Or who war on science in the name of the religion of environmentalism, who starve nations because of their insistence on 19th century farming techniques?
Can we stop smearing each other long enough to have discourse again? Or is it time for the next Two Minute Hate?
From last year’s Gallup poll:
Democrats who disbelieve in Evolution: 41%
Republicans who disbelieve in Evolution: 58%
Democrats who believe in human-caused global warming 43%
Republicans who believe in human-caused global warming 19%
Of course these numbers don’t tell the whole story. It also matters that the Republican leadership is anti-science to a far greater degree than the Democratic leadership. I sure don’t discount the presence of goofy ideas on the left or in the center, for that matter; but it’s the Republicans who egg the nuttiness on.
Parallel case: I’ve met lefties who actually believe that Bush ordered the destruction of the two towers, though nothing like as many as the army of rightists who believe that Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. Thing is, though, Republican pols encouraged their crazies while Democratic leaders, quite properly, denounced theirs. There is simply no Democratic equivalent to Donald Trump. (You have my condolences on that last point.)
All you have shown is that the different parties attack science from different sides (Left – advocacy vs. Right – religion). This is not news. But for the Right, it isn’t a platform element. Environmentalism in its current state is less real science than advocacy cloaked in the guise of the scientific. (I’d argue that advocacy and the love affair with the theoretical over the practical are the real threats to science. But they don’t make as wonderful a strawman as evolution.)
As for the Left denouncing their crazies, no, they don’t. Last time I checked, they’re quick to try to tie any shooting to the Right, regardless of what embarrassing manifestos pop up afterwards. Who condemned the liberals for falsely crying racism during a Tea Party rally when the video showed otherwise? And if something happens that embarrasses the Left, it gets swept under the rug, while anything on the Right gets shouted from the rooftops.
I am not the extremists in my party, nor are many Democrats theirs. But the double standard is that I have to apologize for my extremists while Democrats often aren’t aware of theirs. If they are, they can shrug them off. What’s sadder is that this tactic serves as debate in this country.
In these trying times, let’s argue policy, not caricature.
Hey Jimbo,
You might want to brush up on those critical thinking skills there buddy. You state speaking of Climategate, and I quote,
“By the way, have you actually read the famous emails? I have and I have a lot of experience reading technical documents. There is absolutely nothing untoward in any of ‘em.”
Wow where did you get that idea at the Huffington Post? When Nasa is saying that the data the receive is unreliable is that not something to “give you pause”? or do you just keep on believing? Maybe you should read some alternative points of view.
For example, this information that did come from the hacked e-mails states:
“n a ClimateGate e-mail, CRU Director Phil Jones has acknowledged that CRU mirrors U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data. “Almost all the data we have in the CRU archive is exactly the same as in the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) archive used by the NOAA National Climate Data Center,”
So that didn’t seem suspect to you huh? How about this one:
By the way this statement has nothing to do with the hacked e-mails. It also talks about how the data
Dr. Theon also testified that: “My own belief concerning anthropogenic [man-made] climate change is that models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit”. He observed: “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modeled in the observations, nor explain how they did it…this is contrary to the way science should be done.” He then went on to say “Thus, there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy”.
There truly is nothing more pathetic than a citizen whose little god is Al Gore…
…nothing.
Not even an Obama rube.
Evolution is an attempt to describe historical events. Historical events cannot be verified via scientific method, but rather the same evidentiary method used in courts. Because there were no witnesses to billions of years of supposed evolution, it is an unprovable, unscientific attempt to explain the origin and progression of life. Yet it is accepted with religious fervor in the scientific community, the educational system and popular media.
We really need to stop worshipping the dual gods of human reason and relativism.
If you doubt this assessment, please prove to me, scientifically, that George Washington was our first President.
Jimbo, We now have stumbled on to why you are so lost and angry.
You pigeonhole and sterotype everyone who does not agree with you.
How do I know this about you? You claim there is simply no Democratic equivalent to Donald Trump.
So Jimbo, how do you explain Al Sharpton and the fact that Alan Grayson is now back in congress. I would call those a couple of whacky democrat equivalents.
How does the fact that Vikings explored North America and called it Vinland 400 years before Columbus did the same square with your climate change hypothesis. Seems to me most historians and the geologic record indicate the climate has always been changing for better or worse.
Beliefs about the origins of the universe are relevant in almost ZERO public policy issues. Stop making it a campaign litmus test and campaign issue. Same for the 99% of other job descriptions.
As for global warming (or the euphemistic “climate change” that it has conveniently morphed into), there are plenty of scientists on both sides of this issue.
Calling the right/conservatives/Republicans anti-science is a straw man and a dog whistle leftists use to marginalize those who have faith in God. We’re onto that game.
James Lawrence Powell surveyed 13, 950 peer reviewed papers on global warming. Precisely 24 denied its reality.
Thanks for playing.
Which kind of “global warming” are we even arguing about? The world has been warming pretty steadily since the last ice age. I don’t think anyone disputes that. However, what is in dispute is what role, if any, mankind has played in the warming of recent decades. My skepticism came sharply into play as soon as the left started using the word “consensus” to describe the issue. “Consensus” is a political term, not a scientific one. There isn’t even any “consensus” over the full nature of gravity which we’ve known about for far longer than we’ve been aware of the concept climate as a global issue that could be manipulated by mankind. Not only that, but physicists are more than happy to provide all the data and results of their experiments and theoretical calculations involving gravity whereas climate scientists are thoroughly secretive and nasty when challenged for their data sets so that others can attempt to reproduce their results. You’d think that one bunch has something to hide.
Which ignores that global warming scientists were the gatekeepers to the journals and the recent revelation that they abused this power to suppress articles that challenged their ideas. (Climategate. A perfect example of an embarrassment to the Left that got swept under the rug and a non-evolution attack on science.) It also ignores that the 80%/20% rule in scientific journals is slanted to the 80% being inaccurate.
Remember to keep the tin foil in place over your heads at all time. You can never be too careful about the mind-control rays.
One historical note: scientists started appealing to “consensus” during an earlier era when they were fighting the tobacco industry. It isn’t language they would normally use, but having to defend yourself from unscrupulous business interests and fanatical idealists can be awkward. There’s a lot of continuity between the climate wars and the earlier tobacco wars. In fact the denialist strategies used in both struggles were developed by the same PR firm, Hill and Knowlton. You can look it up.
By the way, have you actually read the famous emails? I have and I have a lot of experience reading technical documents. There is absolutely nothing untoward in any of ‘em. In fact the most scandalous thing about the whole affair, aside from the credulity of all you right-wing tools, was the almost never mentioned fact that the emails were hacked in the first place. Gentlemen don’t read other people’s mail.
Cognitive Dissonance is a powerful thing, Jim.
So is the threat of losing grant money.
Denying man-made global warming doesn’t pay the bills, nor does it make a lot of friends. Being a scientist doesn’t make you immune to the powerful temptations of being liked and being funded.
Gentlemen also aren’t so quick to dive towards insult and ridicule. They also assume that people who disagree with them aren’t automatically idiots and might have valid points. This civility has been lost by both sides. Therefore, as you have proven that you are no gentleman by your actions, you have no moral footing to lecture.
Since you have no interest in a dialogue and are only interested in scoring points, I wash my hands of you.
You forgot all the papers that were refused publication because they didn’t toe the line. Only looking at the papers written by those who are paid to find AGW and reviewed by those to find AGW is just a tad, uh stupid? Papers that are from the likes of one of the true believers that went to Siberia and took cores from 110 trees far from man to use their tree rings to estimate yearly temperature. Then he used 9. Looks like the other 101 didn’t fit the narrative.
It is clear who the unscientific ones are. Jim Harrison, meet mirror.
You really are in tin-foil country. I know you don’t realize it or can’t admit it for psychological/ideological reasons; but global warming is a fact.
Long before there was a political controversy about climate change or anybody even noticed that it would have implications for powerful business interests, scientists like Svante Arrhenius recognized that increasing the CO2 in atmosphere would have a warming effect. That was over a hundred years ago. Arrhenius underestimated how much warming would take place by now because he underestimated how much fossil fuel would be burned in the intervening period. Of course other inputs or cycles could counteract the warming. In fact, at times in the last 100 years big volcanic eruptions have done just that for short periods; and the climate at any given time is the result of whole series of cycles inside cycles, which guarantees that graphs of climate change aren’t going to be smooth and simple. The complexities of the situation are the reason that thousands of scientists have been working to define what’s actually going on for decades now. Thing is, though there’s plenty of debate and disagreement about the scale, timing, and implications of global warming, very few dispute its reality because the underlying physics is so straightforward. Conspiracy theories about money changing hands or group think are not only implausible. They ignore the most obvious reason almost everybody’s on the same page. It’s damned hard to explain why the Earth wouldn’t warm up if you keep pumping in more and more CO2.
One note about those tree rings: tree rings are used to estimate temperature changes when there is no more direct way of getting such information. They are, to use the jargon, proxies for temperatures. What the scientist libeled in the email “scandal” did was to replace some of the estimates of temperature based on tree rings with temperature readings made by other means. It turns out that there are newfangled devices called thermometers that are thought to be rather more accurate than tree rings…
I defended you down below.
You’re welcome.
Any time I can help.
Please don’t waste your time and energy on the likes of Jim Harrishmuck. He has venomous opinions on every topic, even ones he knows nothing about. He is simply too ignorant to understand how ignorant he is. However, he thinks he knows everything about everything and thinks he has the solution to all of the world’s problems. The guy is what Thomas Sowell might call a self-anointed messiah. He believes that civilized and successful people and countries are intrinsically evil and he has a vicious hatred of Jews and Israel. His posts are often incoherent ramblings. He evades questions, he tells outright lies and he throws tantrums. Please don’t waste your time and energy on this immature, malignant, narcissistic, attention-starved, anti-Semitic demagogue.
The Dem convention before election time should have been an indicator.
The circus is in town again, only this time bigger and without all that glitter.
“I believe that God is in control.”
Ah ha!! So why do you fret over what little Mr. Obama and his man-worshippers do or say (or don’t say)? They are fools, all of them. WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE and all of us, ALL OF US, will bow before Him and have to give an account.
When Churchill told Stalin after WWII that his domestic actions were offending Catholics and the Vatican, that snide, evil, self-possessed man replied, “and how many divisions does the Vatican have?” (paraphrasing). So I ask, here in 2013, where is Stalin? Where is the Soviet Union? Where is your communist dream of utopia on earth, sans a “spirit in the sky”? Despite its problems, the Vatican is doing just fine. Socialist fools, all of them….as are the present bunch. What makes anyone think that we’ve crossed a “Rubicon” when meek, small President Obama and his silly cadre move slightly away from God. If Stalin and the Commies couldn’t overcome faith, then we in American have nothing to worry about.
To LovelyEarth:
The Church will survive, though the remnant will be small in number — as the Bible makes clear. The nation? and its increasing propensity to celebrate evil? Its day are numbered.
The faith will survive the same way it survives in China, but do you really want to live through such dark days? I know that I surely don’t.
But I do know that we elected a man and party who removed God from their platform and booed him three times as they attempted to put him back in for appearance’s sake. Some things are a little too symbolic to be ignored.
God my bless the faithful, but I’m fairly sure he no longer blesses America. We had our chance, we blew it. Any redemption now will be long and very, very painful. Yes, God is in control, but nothing says he has to make anything easy.
NAACP convention Part II. What people like this woman really worship is themselves; they are their own messiah and they await only their own coming. While such people criticize Eurocentrism, she managed to make the “prayer,” and our history, about the 10% of the population that was disenfranchised.
What’s more centric than that?
I despise these people and their racial obsession with themselves. It’s 2013. Get on with your lives already.
It’s one thing to say there were “unborn hopes” and we were a nation of unborn hopes, since slavery was attacked and abolished in present states and future territories even before our Constitution was ratified.
That’s the Leftist meme: that America had slavery. It didn’t. Some states did, and by the Civil War those Americans comprised only 20% of our nation’s population. They say America was built on slavery. It wasn’t.
This is what I read between the lines. Screw her. In this woman’s mind the Civil War never happened and Jim Crow never ended. It’s one thing to acknowledge injustice and quite another to hideously exaggerate it, paint people with it by race who never had anything to do with it, and extend its shelf life out to eternity.
“since slavery was attacked and abolished in present states and future territories even before our Constitution was ratified.” Run that by me again. Do you mean SOME present states? As for the future territories, what happened with the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican War? Maybe you could make the case that a scant majority of the people were sort of against slavery in 1789, but certainly not enough to avoid the 3/5ths rule (yeah, I know it could have been worse)and the general agreement to let it simmer for a while. And then there was the next sixty years, which got exponentially worse as the “slave power” got most of what it wanted until the election of 1860.
Read the state constitution of Massachusetts which abolished slavery and about the Northwest Ordinance. Both predate the ratification of our Constitution.
Yes, some states, some territories, not all – that was the point.
It’s their country now. This is their narrative, and now the official narrative.
Doesn’t surprise me a bit. The DNC told us under no uncertain terms that God was not welcome at the Democrat table. So a wishy-washy, say-nothing ramble of a “prayer” to an amorphous-to-nonexistent deity was completely in the Democrat gameplan.
Much of the reason that America has worked as the Great Constitutional Experiment thus far, is that our leaders have understood that our rights are God-given, and as Christians they understood clearly just Who God is. Take that away, and there is no fundamental reason to give the People any rights at all.
A government run by Christians (as distinct from a Christian government) gives atheist activists the freedom to speak freely under the Bill of Rights. Don’t expect a government run by atheists to extend Christians the same courtesy.
Nothing left to do but sit back and watch it burn. When the government collapses from the internal rot, we’ll take it back and re-build it from the third-world power it will inevitably become.
Amen brother… well said!
That durn constitution just keeps on getting in the way of the evangelical Religious Right/Moral majority folks! Durn, that constitution!
No, I’m an Evangelical Christian and that durn Constitution has never interfered with me once. Grateful that it keeps the tyrants at bay, provides me my God given rights including the ability to defend myself from the Obama stooges, and his supporters who would love to noting more than shut my mouth – like you.
You should read it. Would do you and your American hating crowd some good.
You don’t expect a OFA troll to read “your little book”?
Then tell me why it is, that you evangelical extremists go running to the government in an attempt to exert your values on all the people of the land? Maybe it is you and your people, who need to read the constitution!
Freedoms of religion and the practice thereof, are constitutionally granted ONLY to ‘INDIVIDUALS’ — not the collective of American citizens or the government. Seems you and many others have no faith in the God of your religion thus, you need to rise up and do His work for him. Bet you’re gonna make Him happy with your little faith in Him.
So much blather to say essentially nothing, but you sound like a good little communist. I have a hint for you, it’s Obama talking about collectives and collective salvation. If you want to worry about theocracy, start looking there.
“If you want to worry about theocracy, start looking there.”
Or, look no further than the desires of the evangelical tea party folks! They want their particular brand of religion in public schools and government legislation. So, heres a deal just for you. Every citizen has a right to file any brief of grievances before a local, state or federal court. Why don’t you take a break from PJM long enought to type up all your grievances and file them in presumably, a federal court and report back on their status?
Would not that be far more productive than working yourself all up in a frenzy on PJM with people you have disagreement with? If the courts see things your way then I’ll gladly tip my hat to you! Otherwise, ‘your’ opinions have no more validity than anybody elses!
Damn Zeke, you truly are pitiful and paranoid both. Impose our values on you? Are you kidding? Taken a good look at public education recently? Completely secular – run by good lefties like you.
Those are your values, sport. Failed too, I might add.
Face it, champ. You’re a garden variety Christian bigot like Mr. Random, and from my observance, not a terribly bright one either.
Hey Tex, you surely do get confused easily! The topic I’m discussing is religion being legislated v. individual rights of religion and practices therof.
If you have a problem with public schools send your kids to a regligious school or home schoole them — remember that constitutional individual freedom thing? Exercise it! On the other hand, I supose too make you happy, the government could impose Muslim doctrines in the public schools and you’d have no complaints then.
No longer sure what you stand for Tex! One minute you’re on a rant using the constitution as your justification then, the next minute you’re on a rant ignoring the constitution. You remind me of the guy in a love-hate relationship — love to have her around just to have somebody to kick around.
No Zeke, you are for suppression of religion. Under any other name that is still what it amounts to. Since that is YOUR belief stand up and shout it from the roof tops! Don’t be ashamed. Start an honest club. You can name it “Liberals for suppression of all things we don’t like.”
Why do you run to the government to influence it to do your will? We all want the government to do what we believe is right. In this day and age it is the left that wishes to SUPPRESS all other beliefs. (Notice I don’t call the left “liberals”. That is because the left has wondered so far away from it’s once core beliefs that conservatives are now the closest to true liberalism that exists in this country.)
I’ve read all your comments again to get a better feel for your position. It seems you see the government ‘supressing’ your freedom of religious and practice thereof. Nothing could be further from the facts! All the rights of the socalled Bill of Rights extend ONLY to individuals — all individuals citizens of the land and those just on our soil.
So long as you’re not disturbing the peace of others, you’re free to sing your priase and preach your messages on the streets, in your yard, in your office, anywhere you want — again, so long as it does not disturb the territory of peace of others. You can chose your church, go to church, not go to church, believe or don’t believe, you can invite the LDS and JWs in to your home or you can send them packing, and the list goes on. You as an ‘individual’ do have complete freedoms of religion and its practices so long as it does not infringe upon the rights of other individuals.
Schools and all public building and lands under the control of the government (the people — individual people) are quite a different thing. According to the constitution all of government is to be ‘neutral’ on all things of religion and its practices and in fact, is barred by the constitution from enacting any laws pertaining to any religion and it practices or endorsing one religion over another. I concur with the constitution and thus, believe it is left to individuals and shall be absent in any forms of government and legislating functions.
If you feel any government is supressing your ‘individual’ religious freedoms and practice, by all means, understand you have the right as a citizen to file an legal brief of your grievances in any court, presumably a federal court.
Leave poor Jim Harrison alone.
He can’t help being what he is.
Which is … I’ll let all ya’ll finish the sentence.
… is the least of her sins.
It’s like making fun of the hairdo of that “rhymes with punt” Valerie he keeps on the side.
Or the state of the teeth Susan Rice lies through.
Don’t be petty.
That’s what they are. When, as Chuckie “Pardon Me For Being Ridiculous” C has pointed out, the Left go after Sarah Palin.
It really is not hard to be better then them.
We’re in the midst of a social revolution right now. Think just what those words,”social revolution” mean.
It’s not a good omen that such as this Evers Williams was chosen to speak. Obama has used a hallowed traditional ceremony as a vehicle to press his revolutionary socialistic agenda.
Obama is trying his damnedest to hollow out the very foundations of our America as we know it.
“We’re — in the midst of a social revolution right now.”
“We” = about 20% of one party’s radical right wing at best, put another way, only 20% at best of 112.8 million republicans. Or, a very minute fraction of the approximate 300 million people 18 years of age AND OLDER. If you were of the numbers you people think, either Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich would have won the primary and the general election over Obama by a huge landslide.
The evangelicals and the tea partiers go to rallies where there’s a thousand just like them, then they engage in echo chamber sites where there’s a thousand just like them, and they think “wow, I’m part of what’s happening” without once considering mathematics. They have no idea that they are absurdly small minority in the grand scheme of things. “But there were at least 1000 at my tea party rally” would be a big deal in a town of 1500.
Re Bolyard’s article this is the very picture of what is f**ked up about the right wing, the notion of having a right wing web site devoted to politics that seemingly thinks nothing of the intermix of far right christian idiocy, as if this is one and the same thing as republican.
Not so astonishingly the far right can’t fathom how the election was lost, blaming it on the unicorn-like “low info voter,” the layabouts wanting obamaphones (ad nauseum) when in fact it’s actually embodied by far right christian wingnuts like Bolyard or Klavan being allowed to effectively speak on behalf of republicans by featuring their christian specific articles.
Frankly if I were a democrat I’d be laughing myself utterly silly at the lunatic fringe denizens of this site and reading the missives of losers like Bolyard and Klavan who the geniuses at PJM get to write garbage like this article that supposedly represents the interest of republicans. However I’m not a democrat and as far as I can tell this site represents precisely why the republicans are at a current point where they’d be lucky to be elected dogcatcher.
“The blacks can’t stop talking about their race” goes the common complaint from the idiots who can’t stop talking about their religion…
The Founders suffered from the same problem. How did we ever make it to 1813 let alone 2013?
Respectfully, you’re right — but you din’t finish the story!
They did something about their differences — what was it they did? Solve the poblem? Yes of course they did! They didn’t just sit and throw stones at each other or suggest that following generations do such.
They wrote a constitution in which every ‘individual’ citizen was granted the same free agency that God granted to all people. Then they went a step further. They wrote into the constitution that NO government shall write any
law(s) granting any particular religion beliefs and practices thereof, over another religion or no religious beliefs whatsoever. Any religious freedoms, constitutionally speaking, are to remain with the individual — doesn’t even cite the term ‘church’ in the constitutions language.
Fortunately, the majority of Americas citizens know the constitution far better the the evangelical christian right/moral majority does. Keep you religion and practices of same to yourselves and out of the government as dictated by the constitution.
As a devout Christian, I don’t ever want my children and their familes to be faced with a government dictating any religion and religious values not of their own choosing.
@Zeke…
“I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man…”
Most people are not familiar with this prayer, offered by President Thomas Jefferson at the end of the very same letter that includes the so-called “separation of church and state” language that the God-deniers love to cite as proof that Jefferson favored banning all references to religion in government. If that’s the case, we would have to believe that Jefferson, writing in his capacity as President, likely on government time on government stationary (certainly with the coercive power of the government at his side) violated the “separation of church and state” by offering a prayer in the very same letter!
How absurd.
Bolyard you’re not very quick on the uptake, are you? I don’t care what you say or where; my commentary is aimed at the owners/operators of PJM, who seem to be devoting disproportionate bandwidth to the wingnut faction of the GOP, which of course distorts the reality of the voting population’s interests. They have created an echo chamber where the republican moderate voice is drowned out by the ululations of the far right looney fringe bible beaters like you.
Here at PJM the operators/commentors/denizens were shocked when Romney lost the election despite efforts by we moderates that this site was nowhere near the pulse of the electorate. You are an example of the underlying problem. Your articles and commentary are better suited to religious web sites. If PJM were more realistic and offered commentators addressing the concerns of the average republicans and spiced it up with bible silliness, that would be one thing, but instead they are doing the opposite. It’s no surprise that the worldview herein is fairly antipodal to reality.
Do you think with some effort that you might be able to grasp the simple notion that I don’t think the venue is appropriate as opposed to diving into “oh my they’re persecuting me cuz I’m a christian and wanting to restrict my freedumbs?”
So all Christians are the Lunatic Fringe. All who don’t agree with you lock step are the Lunatic Fringe. You want to suppress them and their free speech. Just clarifying.
We’re here enjoying each others company randomengineer. We’re here to think, reason, be challenged, challenge each other, talk through ideas and strategies, explore the viewpoints of others and generally have a good time. I love this place and I love articles like this. Democrats doubled down on demonizing and hate after 2010, here we’re doubling down on knowledge, understanding and wisdom. The truth takes longer but it always prevails.(How can you tell an outgoing engineer from a shy one? The outgoing engineer looks at YOUR shoes instead of his own when he’s talking to you.)
On the other hand theres a huge amount of spoon-feeding going on around here by self serving activists. Truly ‘independent’ thinkers are not exactly welcomed into the choir, so I’m not certain how you conclude all the free thinking and sharing of ideas you alluded too.
@ Paula Bolyard up #21 way
You present a totally irrelevant point! I couldn’t care less what any elected government officials cites to one another in the course of personal discourse. Heres what I do care about!
1. What the constitution says.
2. Any religious individual or organization representing any religion, its dontrine and values, trying to effect government enactments on their religions behalf.
We are a nation in which the founders, established immigration from any land, any religion, or no religion, and any governmental experiences of the world, to come here and share in the individual freedoms granted to American citizens. To attempt to cause laws of enactments to exert your religious beliefs and practices on any other citizens is purely religious pride, arrogance and self idolatry — and unconstitutional!
As an idividual feel free to express any religious utterances you wish so long as they are absent in any forms of govermental legislation.
Independent thinker.
Chatty Cathy religious bigot on a pull string – seven different answers available.
That ain’t my idea of independent thinker, Zzzzzzeke.
The purpose of the Establishment Clause was the keep the state out of the church – to prevent the establishment of a state religion. It had absolutely nothing to do with banning all references to religion by government officials or in government buildings.
Precisely! Kindly read my response to you above. If the evangelical movement was not about enacting government legislation on behalf their particualr brand of religion, there would be no problems with them. They could walk around the halls of congress, the offices of the exectutive branch and in the chambers of the supreme court having bible study and cherry picking scriptures to cite to one another — but knock it off when drafting offical legislating business. It is simply unconstitutional to be represented in any legislated enactments.
@Zeke…Abortion, the great dividing line of our time is more than (as you say), “the evangelical movement was not about enacting government legislation on behalf their particualr [sic] brand of religion.” First, I agree with your point to an extent that the politics of the GOP have been confused with the church/evangelical movement or whatever you want to call it. Over the years, there were some (a handful, not representative of the church overall statistically) who blurred the lines.
But understand that for many people, including many with sincere religious convictions, abortion is a human rights issue. We believe that there are two lives involved when a pregnancy occurs. Two sets of DNA. Current law forces us to walk by a burning building when we know a baby is sleeping in the nursery and avert our eyes and keep walking. Indeed, we are prevented by law from entering the house to save the baby. We believe there is an unjust law that is depriving an unborn child, endowed by her created with certain unalienable rights – including the right to life. As citizens of a constitutional republic, we have the freedom to work to change that law. As it stands, we are living under the morality that someone else’s religious/a-religious beliefs have imposed upon us. Nearly every law is a result of someone imposing their beliefs upon someone else. We seek a reversal of that and have a right as citizens to do so.
Aaah! Was patiently awaiting the abortion issue to be dragged out.
“…abortion is a human rights issue. We believe…”
The latter part is what gets you in hot water with the constitution, majority and the Supreme Court. Your beliefs and as such, your practices are that founded upon your religious teachings and indoctrination. I share the same!
However Paula, those who don’t happen to share in your religious beliefs and practices are ‘equally’ protected under the constitution. Doesn’t square with yours or my religious doctrines, but I have the same constitutional protection to make choices not to be involved in abortions. For myself, I resign to letting God deal with those who chose abortions — just as I do for those policy and law makers in government. I’m not so prideful and arrogant to believe that I want to kick God off his throne and sit in judgement of his creations and His word.
Personally, I can see possibly, the high court reversing ‘in part” Roe v. Wade as science and technology advances but not to the degree you would like. Then comes the issue of exceptions to a complete ban of abortions. If a fetus is determined to be human life at only the point of conception, then who should doctors judge to have human and life precedent rights in the case of one or both being subject to a fatal outcome of injury or disease? Should “natural” abortion be subject to some criminal biological negligence on the part of the mother? There seems to be logical and medical justifications to exceptions too abortion thus, once you open the door to exceptions you open the door to constitutional equality of rights. I happen to believe that the exceptions allowed by law are appropriate to constitutional individual rights as much as I disagree with abortion without justification. I’ll let God sort it out when the time comes. Thats what the position of the constitution and the renderings of the suopreme court have been.
In the meantime, I want no government in the U.S. to dictate anything with regards to any religion, belief or practice. It may not be the one I would chose!
Zeke — Aaah! Was patiently awaiting the abortion issue to be dragged out.
It always is. Aside from the interesting side discussions by sane types that want to discuss equal protection angles, abortion is boring and over and done. Even if the wingnut faction manages to get it outlawed, it’s been pointed out by a lot of us that women simply hop planes and get abortions elsewhere. Nothing changes. Abortion as an issue was trumped by the introduction of passenger jets. Being opposed to abortion is about as effective as neolithic hunter gatherers being religiously opposed to farming.
Do you ever listen to the cranks on this site?
“Back in my day, why, we real men *hunted* for our food. There wasn’t any of this candy-ass sitting around waiting for our obamawheat. Obama even wants our arrows! It was good enough for grandpa, and it’s good enough for me. Farming is the devil’s work! Our society has truly gone to hell.”
i.e. they fight change not grasping that they’re fighting technology itself, until of course it inexorably crushes them. Thing is, though, man *is* his technology.
“Back in my day, why, we *real* men chased our meals down and ate our food raw. There wasn’t any of this use of ‘arrows’ that allows the limp wristed to survive and certainly none of this namby pamby cooking crap. If god wanted us to eat cooked food there would be a hearth in our throats. Fire is the devil’s tool! Our society has truly gone to hell.”
Zeke — The latter part is what gets you in hot water with the constitution, majority and the Supreme Court.
One would think that this would also get her/them in major guacamole with god as well. After all, one of the commandments deals with taking god’s name in vain, which, when one claims to speak for god, is what that amounts to.
I have great respect for religion in the abstract, yet I have zero respect for those who claim to speak for their deity. One problem I see on this site is that the latter group conflates my contempt of *them* with their faith. It’s easier to shirk personal responsibility for a POV and claim an attack on faith, after all, and intellectual laziness would seem to be a virtue to that crowd.
Those who are faithful and not using their faith as a cudgel are worthy of the utmost respect. The wannabe dictators are useless, contemtpible creatures.
Poor Zeke,
he doesn’t understand the establishment clause or understand that Massachusetts retained an establishment of religion in general until 1833 or that Connecticut continued to do so as well until it replaced its colonial Charter with the Connecticut Constitution of 1818.
The establisment of expanding the socialist state could easily be considered a religion of state.
That’s what is to love about you purists. If everybody you don’t agree with would just shut up and be silent, oh how the world would be right.
Why is it people on this page feel a need to insult anyone who expresses a different opinion than theirs? Is this a distinction with pj reader or conservatives in general? Chuckie Cheese, how very creative coming from a person who calls herself Lolly.
Its how they bond with the general public to gain their support and votes — note their successes by the outcomes of 2008 and 2012!
Like in comparison to Obama’s record of 2009-2013? Abject failure.
Opinions followed by a vote are one thing. You win. Gross incompetence is simply fact. We all lose.
I give you one thing, Zeke. No doubt you’re the small majority. ongratulations. It’s why the country is swirling the bowl.
I have no personal linkage to the nation swirling bowl Tex! Only certain generations can be pointed too as responsibile for the cause and outcome of swirling in the bowl. My generation and that of my parents and grandparents, were the more responsible generations.
God is racist, so put a bunch of progressive materialism and self-idolatry that’ll feel better in there instead! (The ol’ Golden Calf by any other name.)
So they left out God, Which God?? Not my God. I am a non theist. And they cant pick one over the other. This is a country of many Gods or no Gods. Isnt it?? So whats the problem??? Oh you want your God In there. I dont.
I can feel it.
ObamaHate is growing by leaps and bounds. He’s planned it that way.
Is there an end to it? Don’t hold your breath.
The humanist men of the Enlightenment, and our Founders perceived (new) human rights and “chose” to call them God-given. Natural rights or human rights is what they are, but such terms do not work as well, rhetorically. I cannot recall many of these “God-given” rights which are enumerated in the Constitution and the Amendments as being particularly or consistently Biblical. Basically, God says, “I made you, I love you? Do what I say…or else.” Or do the Ten Commandments posit human rights by implication? One has the right not to have things done to him or herself which the Ten Commandments forbid? It works for not killing, but is it a God-given right not to have your neighbor covet your stuff? Jesus softens it and preaches loving thy neighbor (one would assume, even if he is a liberal). Is this loving the neighbor what Christians see as the “God-given rights” or some other rights? If so, these rights were pretty much lost from the time of Jesus up until the Enlightenment.
Doesn’t God, especially the Old Testament one, see human rights as basically a stiff-necked, most likely fallen, evil thing, which is likely to get the fiery serpents sent into the humans’ midst? Isn’t the idea to give up your human INDIVIDUALITY to do what God says? What do rights have to do with it? Didn’t the rights finally come from men perceiving a need for freedom and then having them SAY they were God-given, because that was the rhetorical coin of the realm, as Jefferson and Lincoln knew so well. Use King James language and cadence and it carries a lot more weight. They did not do this because they were (particularly) duplicitous, but simply because they knew it worked. Four score and ten years ago…etc. I suppose that one could argue that a new God came to Lincoln about the time of Antetiem. There had to be some power out there to make this mass slaughter somehow worthwhile.
Anyway, one could deduct less than a score of style points from Ms. whoever-she is, but in terms of politics and governance, it seems to me that the way she puts it is about right. Oops, then she throws in Jesus name, which makes our essayist even more outraged.
God = something larger than we are, something larger than our own individual rights. In the past, a King was substituted for God; now it is in the voting done in a democratic republic. There is a conservative impulse (or trick) here to say that because the Founders invoked God, that God had something to do with the God-given rights the Founders gave. I’ll give the imperfect Founders more credit than God, although it may have been a new God, an Enlightenment God, an American God, which spoke to them, just as an Abolitionist God spoke to Garrison and Brown. But just as that God was different from the God of the Middle Ages, one might posit that a post slavery, post New Deal God, might be a tad different as well. And apparently God has changed for BOTH sides. The God of the right is now offended by liberals, whereas before he used to be offended by evil mankind in general.
If God works for you to make you a better person, then God bless you, but if He works to make you peevish about his name not being mentioned in government speech, then I guess he is a useful God to club someone over the head with, always a handy thing.
Thus endeth the ramble.
Not quite ended: the new God is not JUST ” the voting done in a democratic republic,” but also the tradition which has developed in the past votes of that republic and the way it has chosen to define and redefine itself. The Constitution obviously has plenty of power and value, but not because it came from God (which it does not mention) but because it was voted in, even if by hook and by crook, accepting slavery, etc. Supposedly, God never changes, humans change. The evidence is that BOTH change, and thank…somebody, often, if not exclusively, for the better.
Dwight,
Do yourself a favor and go to http://www.heritage.com and take a constitution course. They are free and you might learn a thing or two. Frankly the only thing that comes to mind from your rant is this old truth:
Better to remain silent and have them think you a fool then to open your mouth (or should I say keyboard) and remove all doubt.
You write of “heady” things but you have no substance to your argument. The founding fathers were very much viewing the world from a biblical world view. And believe it or not people used to talk like that! Just read old letters written by soldiers and you can learn that. And as to your simplistic approach to a supreme being,
“God says, “I made you, I love you? Do what I say…or else.”
No the reason God hates sin is because it hurts the person. He loves you and therefore He wants the best for you. No, the ten commandments are frankly common sense. And when Jesus came onto the scene he did not lighten the load of the ten commandments. Moreover, he taught that if you even look at a man with hate in your hear then you have already murdered him. No it is a complete lack of understand of the most basic principals to not understand that Jesus did not come to destroy or replace the law but He came to fulfill the law. By showing that the law was spiritual he was cutting to the quick. He was telling everyone that they can not fulfill the law. It is impossible. And so what was the law for? It was to be a mirror to our souls so we would understand that we need a savior. Until you understand your need for a savior then you will never have one. Unfortunately.
Sorry the link for the free Constitution course is https://online.hillsdale.edu/ . Heritage is where you will find additional resources on conservative thinking.
The founding fathers were very much viewing the world from a biblical world view.
blah blah blah
Until you understand your need for a savior then you will never have one. Unfortunately.
Condensed version: if you are a bible beating idiot, the founding fathers utterances can only be interpreted as biblical.
For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”
1 Corinthians 3:19-20 (ESV)
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
1 Corinthians 1:18-19 (ESV)
I’m not at all surprised by your hostility, because it’s naturally how people dead in their sins will behave when confronted with the truth. When unbelievers hear the Gospel, they do one of two things:
1. Reject it with ferocity, mocking, and/or anger.
2. They will repent and believe, through the grace of God alone. Not because God saw something worthwhile in you (there’s nothing worthwhile to be found in a man dead in his sin), not because you decided of your own volition to believe, but because God gave you to repent and believe.
Dogbytes, maybe you could share some of your knowledge on the contributions of the Enlightenment to the Constitution, something beyond they were Biblical people and “talked like that.” If you want to question any of this point by point, I’m here. Let the scales fall from your eyes and see men walking about like trees…or something.
Howdy Dwight,
You are absolutely correct. The enlightenment was crucial to our founding. No question. The writing of John Locke, Montesquieu and even Socrates were very strong foundations to the understanding that no man is special in a way that they should rule over another. Very true. Any Christian is not afraid of enlightenment. Neither were our founders. In fact, reason is what makes me believe in the God of the bible verses other theories. Although Thomas Jefferson said he believed in the morals taught in Christianity he rejected the organization of religion. And to the extent that any religion tries to “Lord over you” and dictate how one should worship most enlightened Christians would also reject these standards. But you must admit that their was an equal number, perhaps an overwhelming majority, of founders who believed in the God of the bible. John Adams is one such person but their are many more. Just because we are enlightened does not make science and reason above God. It does however, give one a process whereby they can understand their faith on a deeper level. The real sad part of young people today is that they do not understand the enlightenment. They do not understand that our founders understood this very principal that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and man in the form of a government is not to be trusted. Sadly, young people today do not understand this principle and willingly give up their freedom in the hope that an all powerful government will take care of them. This is the “flavor” of the day and as Reagan once said and I paraphrase, “Freedom was not given to us in our bloodstream. It has to be fought for. It has to preserved. And it is never more than one generation away from being cast off forever.
OK, I am with you for most of what you say re: Jefferson vs Adams, but I can’t see that you are addressing my central point that “God-given” has been bandied about too loosely. What exactly in the Bible affirms “God-given rights” as described in our Founding documents? And where were those rights for 1776 years?
But to support at least the idea that the Enlightenment was not antithetical to religious values in England and America, here are some excerpts from a review on of my college classmates just wrote of Gertrude Himmelfarb’s ““The Roads to Modernity: The British, French and American Enlightenments:”
,
In her brutal dissection of the French Enlightenment, Himmelfarb contends that esteemed philosphes Diderot and Voltaire were elitists who were contemptuous of common people. Voltaire’s contempt led him to a cynical espousal of religion for the lower classes, as a means of keeping them in line, with the more enlightened elements of the population eschewing backward religious practices (Himmelfarb excuses a similar tendency of some of the American founding fathers, p.211). Disdaining Christianity, Voltaire was even more disparaging of Judaism. To associate the French Enlightenment with democracy, moreover, is to ignore the historical record. The philosophes favored enlightened despotism and embraced Rousseau’s collective notion of the general will, which Himmelfarb considers inherently hostile to individual liberty (p.167).
Himmelfarb also seeks to establish that there was in fact a distinctive 18th century British Enlightenment, a point at odds with conventional academic wisdom. In addition to Adam Smith and David Hume (whom some scholars see as representatives of a distinctly Scottish Enlightenment), she finds both Edmund Burke and John Wesley central to the English Enlightenment. A host of sentiments, which Himmelfarb summarizes by “social virtues” or “moral sense” – benevolence, compassion, sympathy, “fellow-feeling,” a natural affection for others– comprised the “social ethic that informed British philosophical and moral discourse” in 18th century Britain” (p.33).
18th century Britain was also characterized by a “conspicuous absence of the kind of animus to religion – certainly nothing like the warfare between reason and religion – that played so large a part in the French Enlightenment” (p.38). In contrast to France, British moral philosophy was “reformist rather than subversive, respectful of the past and present even while looking forward to a more enlightened future” (p.51). Himmelfarb quotes de Tocqueville’s observation that he found in England what he had been deprived of in France, a “union between the religious and political world, between public and private virtue, between Christianity and liberty” (p.52).
If social virtues were at the forefront of philosophical speculation and social policy in 18th century Britain, in America these virtues constitute a backdrop to “political liberty,” the principles and institutions appropriate to a new republic. “As it was liberty that was the driving force of the American Enlightenment, so it was political theory that inspired the Constitution, designed to sustain the new republic” (p.191-92). Like the British, and in contrast to the French, Americans did not turn against religion itself. “Instead, they incorporated religion, of almost every degree and variety, into the mores of society” (p.207). The Founders in America “did not look upon religion as the enemy of liberty” and American churches did not “look upon liberty as the enemy of religion” (p.211).
Himmelfarb raises many points worthy of a good academic debate. Should we really speak of three (or more) Enlightenments? Peter Gay, a towering authority on the Enlightenment, considers it a single phenomenon radiating out from France, as Himmelfarb acknowledges. Was the French Enlightenment as unenlightened as Himmelfarb contends? One of my most memorable college teachers was a leading authority on Diderot who taught his clueless undergraduates to revere not only Diderot but also Voltaire and the other 18th century French philosophes. Several decades later, I am not ready to discard this deeply inculcated reverence. Further, I wonder whether Burke, seminal theorist though he was, should be considered an Enlightenment thinker. One can answer these questions differently from Himmelfarb, yet be impressed by the cogency and readability of her – dare I say “enlightening”? — work.
———————–
As for me, (Dwight,) I say that this supports my view that the Enlightenment was wrapped INTO the religious milieu, rather than being caused by it, hence my view of the use of the term, “God-given rights.”
Natural rights or human rights is what they are, but such terms do not work as well, rhetorically.
Consider also that the founding documents were intended to be read by the king, who came from a tradition where opposition to the king historically was akin to opposition to god, so they also had to phrase things in a way that the king and his minions (and the whole of europe, for that matter) could understand them. Correctly identifying them as ‘natural rights’ would result in the king thinking “WTF, they’ve all gone native.”
And as it happens, so they did. There’s rather important stuff in the constitution derived from the iroquois federation, after all…
I’m appalled that anyone would question the way Michelle looked at the inauguration.
Gorgeous is probably the word I’d use to describe her.
And as beautiful as she is, that’s how intelligent she is as she does her best to help her husband, the great Barack Obama, turn this country into a nation she can be proud of. One where the meek and the poor, our black brothers and sisters, shall inherit the earth.
Remember, there’s a reason Obama transferred 4 trillion in white wealth to black supporters over his first four years.
He was repaying our forebearers who were brought from Africa in chains to slave day and night to make their white masters rich; that same money, which was passed from white generation to generation for generations, deserves to be in black pockets and used to destroy the Republican Party, to steal every vote possible and to ensure that it will never rise again.
Personally, I was so proud of John Roberts for helping turn this past election with his vote for ObamaCare. Yet I was disappointed it had to be bought with plum jobs for Roberts’ relatives and children. The Republicans, though, are to tied up in their own underwear to realize it. It seems to me that every day they’re more and more afraid to speak. How funny. How far the mighty have fallen since those hateful times when they were the kings of the castle, the top of the heap.
In private, Michelle makes me proud when she says she hopes every white man with hate in his heart ends up in ObamaHell, especially anyone who disagrees with the President who knows all things and speaks of honor and truth and, longs for the day when all white males are eliminated from positions of strength and power. I love watching and listening to Rachel Maddow sing every Obama tune, sucking up to Obama every time she meets him.
I love to hear Rachel talk; the way she views white men like impotent, empty suits who can’t fight with fists, but need their guns to compete with the blacks out to take their houses, their money and their women.
Once Obama threatens whites who refuse to give up their guns with jail time, the white gunholders will begin dancing to Obama’s orders like Obama was shooting bullets at their white little feet.
In about nine months, when the white Catholic leaders start going to jail for refusing to abide by ObamaCare and provide black women with the birth control that is their right, everybody will see how soft the mainstream Catholic support of their leadership truly is. The Pope being against abortion and gay marriage is going to come to gradually end, thanks to Obama not putting up with their entreaties about their claimed rights in the Constitution. Poppycock, Obama will say.
President Obama has said many times that the Constitution, which was used to keep slavery alive, is to be defined however Obama Barack defines it.
It’s becoming clearer and clearer to more and more whites on the hill that the law is now what President Obama says is the law.
And I laugh and laugh every time Obama issues an executive order and the Republicans stand around like cigar store indians without the faintest idea what to do.
When Obama became President, he said he was on a seek and destroy mission, seeking out whites that opposed him, and destroying the white institutions in this evil country that have oppressed our black brothers and sisters for far too long.
The Muslim terrorist attacks, the ones to come which will make 9/11 look like child’s play, will put fear into white America, but nothing like the fear that would have them shaking in their boots if they knew the plans President Obama has for them over the next four years.
It will be fun watching. Because I’ll have a ringside seat.
Invoking the Almighty that the author believes the inauguration did not: Christ, but you are one sick, sick puppy.
These monsters in human form are mass murderers, sex perverts, liars, thieves, devoted to the destruction of America, and some fools want to pick at their makeup, gowns and hairdos? What petty, inane, childish silliness! This is another reminder that the polls must be closed to the stupid, amoral and ignorant.
You COULD quit voting Republicon. That’d be a good start.
I heard an opening and closing prayer, Kelly Clarkson ending “My Country Tis of Thee” with the phrase “Great God our King!”, “The Battle Hymn Of the Republic” and “America the Beautiful”, both mentioning God were sung. Obama ended his speech saying God bless these United States, ended his oath with the voluntary (not legally mandated words), “so help me God”, both oaths sworn on Bibles, the luncheon opened and closed with prayers, and Obama and the family went to church on Sunday. This article is a bunch of purely partisan-intended LIES.
Matthew 7:21-23 (ESV):
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Barack Obama sat under the tutelage of Jeremiah Wright for two decades at a church that preaches Black Liberation Theology, which is little more than repackaged Marxism and masquerades as Christian. Many “churches” today are Christian in name only and toss out a watered down Gospel which offends no one, seeks to be accepted by a sinful world, and therefore is no Gospel at all. A little discernment might be of value to you.
You are so right Marlie B.
I’m so glad I live in a country where people don’t care about these things. Australians barely notice that their Prime Minister is female, childless, foreign born, living with a man she hasn’t married, and an atheist. We don’t understand why Americans care so much about these things.
As an American immigrant to Australia, I want to say how much I agree with you. Thanks for having me!
Well, I don’t care if you take out the word “God” from everything, the dollar, the court system, our pledge, and so on but let’s replace it with the word “common-since” because I see a lot of people lacking that too here in America.
Look at me for one, I misspelled “Common-sense” and forgot a comma.
I hope y’all are sitting down. I’ve got news you may not like.
The author is stringing you along with, well… let’s say inaccuracies.
Let’s start with the assertion of Pastor Louie Giglio’s unceremonious removal from the dais. I mean, I’ll give props for his supplying a link to an article about the “incident”. Problem is that the article tells the truth; refuting this author’s claim. Oops.
She then proceeds with a display of (what I assume to be) ignorance. I’ll presume this over being deceitful. For now. Let’s see where this goes.
Anyway; as I was saying, she then proceeds with a display of what I assume to be ignorance about what precisely constitutes prayer claiming that, “her words represent a stunning departure from historical inaugural prayers and from anything resembling a Christian, Jewish, or even a generic Judeo-Christian prayer.”
I chose that phrase deliberately since there IS NO WAY to define or determine just what PRECISELY constitutes prayer. Some definitions are: “an address (as a petition) to God or a god in word or thought”, “an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with a deity, an object of worship, or a spiritual entity through deliberate communication”, “an earnest request or wish”, “a reverent petition made to God”, etc.
By any definition, this was a prayer.
The author then provides this quote: “We come at this time to ask blessings upon our leaders, the president, vice president, members of Congress, all elected and appointed officials of the United States of America. We are here to ask blessings upon our armed forces, blessings upon all who contribute to the essence of the American spirit, the American dream. The opportunity to become whatever our mankind, womankind, allows us to be. This is the promise of America.” and follows by saying, “If it was a prayer, note that Mrs. Evers-Williams addressed it simply to “America,” imploring “America” to bestow blessings upon our leaders and our country.”
Wha… Addressed it to America? Implored America? Seriously? How did she get there? Seems to me like the famous line, “I KNEW I shoulda taken that left toin at Albecoique.”
We have now clearly and definately passed the possibility of ignorance and proceeded resolutely to dishonesty. It is at this point she (wisely?) ends this exposition of bilge.
In the second line pf the third “paragraph”, I meant “her” not “his”. In the immortal words of Gov. Perry, “oops”.
I’ve yet to find a PJM writer who posts anything on here, who does not write expressly, to inflame the inmature childish conscience, of the supposedly superior intellectuals on here. If these are the people who wish to represent and define the republican party of today, there is little hope of any party succes going forward. They draw on comments from two distinct camps — the ones spoon-fed by all the ‘righteous’ historical philosophers who have NO record of contributing success to any society of record and then, the usual vile contemptuous camp who have no contributions for anything except to condemn everything and everybody. One camp speaking over and around everybody and the other speaking from the sewer of society. None attempting to be problems solvers! Did I miss any representations?
It’s about time someone in America gave a speech without invoking their imaginary friend.
Get god and prayer out of America and out of the world.
“Get god and prayer out of America and out of the world.” Be careful what you wish for. My own fear is that the upcoming months/years will make it quite clear that God has already exited America — and much of the world.
Who is this guy (god) anyway?
With ever increasing numbers of Buddhists, Hindus and Taoists, etc., the exclusive Yahwehist cults (“Yahweh or no way!”) can no longer claim to have a monopoly over the religious life of the nation.
Add to that the growing numbers of us whose religious conviction — or lack thereof — are more in-step with those of the Founding Fathers. “I embrace the moral teachings of Jesus. I reject the revelations of scripture” — Thomas Jefferson. They didn’t call it “The Age of Enlightenment” for nothing!
Author Robert A. Heinlein said it best:
“The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by H.Sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the sacharrine adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not recieve this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history.”
Religion is self-referential nonsense with no proof other than the again self-referential “faith”. Believe if you like, but don’t put it on the rational among us, and the Inauguration has no business thanking a non-existent being for doing nothing.
Heinlein failed to understand the God he mocks. God is not moved by the prayers of those who are not His children, only by those whom He’s chosen to save from the punishment due to all mankind.
God chooses to save a remnant of His creation in order to demonstrate His glory. Not because of something worthwhile in us, not because He requires praise and adoration, but because He loves His creation and it pleases Him to do so.
God was invited to the inauguration. He said he couldn’t make it because he was getting his beard done.
In fairness to Myrlie Evers-Williams, at the end of her prayer, she did say, ” In Jesus name.” Which, I was really surprised. I suspect that she threw that in at the last opportunity when no one could possibly hinder her from saying it. But I’m willing to be that that was not in her original script that was most likely approved by the White House staff.
Excellent post! Agreed…and disgusted!!!
If you were offended by this, you have bigger problems. You could always, oh, act like a Christian instead of being on of the hypocrites that stands on the street corner. Know what else is funny? The Rev. Adam Hamilton did a wonderful job at the Inaugural Prayer Service. I’ve been to his church before, wonderful man. It’s a shame so many “Christians” pop up on here and begin to judge others. They forget the two most important commandments. Sad to see so many who do not bear fruit complaining about something so trivial.