Free Speech
Mitt Romney has been asked been accused of insensitivity for saying “during a private reception with wealthy donors this year”, that “almost half of Americans as ‘people who pay no income tax’ and are ‘dependent upon government.’ Those voters, he said, would probably support President Obama because they believe they are ‘victims’ who are ‘entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.’”
But a professor at the University of Utah who is working to destroy Judaeo-Christianity is simply exercising “free speech”.
Lisa Diamond, a psychology professor specializing in the sexuality of relationships, opened the presentation with her thoughts on the anti-gay debate in the United States with the intent to have listeners take a closer look at the traditional patriarchal family construction. …
Diamond opposed the idea that traditional, patriarchal Judeo-Christian marriage is the best option, and said winning same-sex marriage rights won’t do much to further equality.
“We should challenge marriage … I do want to slowly poison and destroy the marriage institution,” she said. “We’re saying that we deserve our rights as long as we are just like you.”
Some audience members understood what Diamond was communicating and why.
“I’ve never heard this point of view but it makes so much more sense,” said Anna Ungerman, a sophomore in health sciences. “Same-sex marriage isn’t the goal — it’s getting rid of the traditional, religious-based marriage structure.”
Dr. Bala Ambati, who sometimes comments on this site, wrote to the University Administration to ask any government funds were involved in the sponsorship of this event and received the vague answer that “these groups enjoy all the protections of free speech guaranteed by the Constitution and University Policy”.
So there.
The concept of ‘civility’ and ‘free speech’ is in practice a very elastic one. For the CEO of a chicken sandwich company to hold views on same sex marriage is considered bigoted and grounds for a national boycott, but to work for the poisoning and destruction of marriage is only free speech. For Randy Newman to produce a music video called “I’m dreaming of a white President, just like the ones we’ve always had …” is simply witty. But for Mitt Romney to say that a lot of people are waiting for the Government Cheese that Barack Obama explicitly promised them is uncivil.
Maybe he should say the 47% won’t receive it, which is even more inflammatory. But either way the Mormon is going to be pilloried. He should be a Salafist. They have all the fun.
Recently “a Tunisian Salafist leader on Monday escaped from a mosque that had been surrounded by security forces seeking to arrest him over clashes at the U.S. Embassy last week during protests against an anti-Islam film.” That would be as if a ‘Christian’ pastor hid inside a church after burning a synagogue. But no outcry is raised because the public is told by the media — not in those exact words — that this is normal behavior to which no one should take exception. We just don’t get the cultural context.
So an unknown Christian who produces a YouTube video in LA sparks world-wide riots and a merits a visit from the sheriff, but an imam who stages a riot just slips away. A Mormon politician who displays irritation in private is accused of being ‘hypocritical’ if he does not conform exactly to an atheist’s conception of Jesus. But a Marxist who potty mouths marriage, Christ, Moses or anyone else is just being ‘edgy’.
Nor do motives count. Even the meanest motives are exalted.
For James Carter, a self-described opposition researcher, releasing videos of Mitt Romney belittling 47 per cent of Americans who pay no federal income tax was personal.
“I don’t like criticism of my family,” the 35-year-old said. Mr Romney has repeatedly used former Democratic president Jimmy Carter, Mr Carter’s grandfather, to make unflattering comparisons about incumbent Barack Obama, accusing both of being “weak” on foreign policy.
According to NBC Dallas‘s Daniel Macht, Carter who is 35 is unemployed. But that doesn’t prove Romney’s point because instead of waiting around for Government Cheese the young Carter “tracked down via Twitter the source who taped Romney speaking to supporters at the closed-door fundraiser” which if it proves anything that the 47%, rather than sitting on its behinds can be out hustling with the best of them for a buck.
This disparity in standards of civility can only raise the question of whether a society can harbor groups with different rules of behavior for very long without one bullying the other. Can two religions, one which believes in turning the other cheek, and the other which believes in bringing more explosive long coexist? Can “atheism” — which we are assured is no religion — live side by side with faiths whose members want to get married and have children and go to church?
Or must some inevitably die under Darwinian competition; aka guns, knives and lawsuits?
The whole notion of Freedom of Speech rests on the idea that whatever befall, government should not take sides in matters of belief — whether that belief is couched as religion or ideology. No sect should be permitted to capture the funding of the state or its moral and legal authority to advance itself. Otherwise the end state of a society will not be one of religious tolerance but religious monopoly, or perhaps duopoly, in which the only remaining sects which are ruthless enough to suppress, murder or drive into hiding their more gentle competitors survive. In a word it will be a society in which the Left and Radical Islam may emerge the only two remaining choices. Then you can select between the civility of the liberal activist or the tolerance of Salafist imam.
That is hellish vision that many Americans came to America to escape. And hell followed after.
Belmont Commenters
How to Publish on Amazon’s Kindle for $2.99
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99
Institutions like marriage, family, common courtesy, tolerance (ie live and let live) came about and endured because they worked. They helped people to survive the hardships of life, to prosper and to conduct civil affairs and commerce. They also conferred the right of privacy which is part of liberty.
When the hallucination of Utopia replaces the hardships of life strange things happen. People come to believe that government handouts are a dandy replacement for all the time-tested institutions. The next step is to question the need for institutions at all. Then people decide that they must “poison and destroy” these institutions.
Unbeknownst to these prize Charlies, the final step is that Utopia disappears and they are thrown back into the hardships of its smoking ruins. I’d bet my entire vegetable patch that, among the smoking ruins, the old institutions will suddenly look very desirable. Then these institutions might just be restored by popular demand.
Long, long ago the rapid rise of political parties in the newly constitutionalized United States promoted ideology to replace theology in forming human identity and loyalty to one group, and with the ideologues as politicians the government budget has ever since always been used to reward fellow-believers and win votes from constituents.
There is not one word of political parties in the Constitution, nor is there any mention of ideology, the mere “treating an idea as if it were fact.” But they are now so thoroughly entrenched and have such a lock on the political ‘structure’ of nominations and incumbency that these non-mentioned institutions govern the entire politics of the nation.
The “funding of the state” of the ideological duopoly is more than 200 years old already and only getting worse, despite different political parties rising and collapsing. It’s more than fascinating that we American people continue to fund, revere, and join a system of governance which has no mention in the Constitution. If we ever have another Amendment to the Constitution, it should address ideology, the political parties, and ‘funding of the state.’
“I’ve never heard this point of view but it makes so much more sense,” said Anna Ungerman, a sophomore in health sciences. “Same-sex marriage isn’t the goal — it’s getting rid of the traditional, religious-based marriage structure.”
Duh.
Well, at least Romney’s getting the numbers about right. We’ve heard for over a year now about the “1% vs. the 99%”, I think Romney’s 47% is a little closer to the truth.
The real fear is: is it more like 51% who are dependent upon “the Government”, that is, upon the earnings of the other 49%? That’s the only metric that really matters in an election.
Interesting that James Carter IV sent the video to David Corn of “Mother Jones” magazine. David Corn and “Mother Jones” are both way out there in the Lunatic Left. I suspect that Carter hesitated to send his video to the “New York Times” because there was a tiny possibility that the “New York Times” might have ethics issues about publishing a video from a private function.
Yeah, right, sure, the “New York Times” will publish classified information impacting national security but not a video from a Romney fund raiser.
Carter may have outfoxed himself because David Corn is such a nasty piece of work that anything associated with him is tainted. Carter should have opted for the “New York Times”.
I wonder how Carter got past the bouncers at Romney’s fund raiser? Also I wonder if Corn approach Carter first?
I think we should revive secret Christianity. Instead of meeting in public churches, they should be in upper rooms or at isolated locations. A good geocaching GPS will help in this regard; the churches meet somewhere and by the time the Tolerant Ones arrive with their whips and cudgels and Hate Speech warrants the assembly will be gone.
We should create monasteries in inaccessible places, perhaps virtual ones, locked up by a password. In it maybe stored the endangered knowledge of the civilization. The classics, like Newton, Aristotle, Einstein, Gauss. The banned works of literature. Repositores of science. A knowledge of nuclear physics. And of course, the teachings of Yeshua and Moses.
That will leave the public stage to the Tolerant Ones to exercise their entitlements to the point of exhaustion and jadedness. Then when they’ve had their fill of sex, drugs and violence and power and when there is nothing but the certainty of dark outside the four walls, the more rebellious of them may venture at last to a grove or hill where it said the Bigoted Ones sometimes gathered. And perhaps from a child or an old man or a beautiful woman who in her public life is something else they will hear the words: “be not afraid. For He is with us always, even unto the ending of the world.”
Militant Christianity paid for America, Kept America Free, our Neighborhoods mostly safe until “Christianity” was forced from America, Now America suffers from a mostly Secular Government and it is only going to get worse as more and more Americans become CINO’s or Secular and Serfdom completely returns (If we ain’t all Muslims in the next 50 years)…. (CINO’s=Christian In Name Only)
6. wretchard
Reminiscent of “A Canticle for Leibowitz.”
FWIW, here is Lisa Diamond’s university web page. Looks like she’s filled all the usual Prog squares:
http://www.psych.utah.edu/people/person.php?id=54
My opinion? Given her research proclivities, Lisa Diamond is merely a Sonderkommando with a Ph.D.
Wretchard @ 6: on the money. “Reviving” secret Christianity is the goal here.
The psycho professor quoted above is trying to tell the truth but can’t because she can’t help lying to herself.
Marriage precedes the church, and the only thing that precedes marriage is biology. By saying that she wants to get rid of a traditional, religious institution, she gives herself away: it’s the religious tradition, the religion itself, that she wants to destroy.
So here we are, again. Secularist theocrats + Islamists vs. Christians, tyranny v. freedom, death v. life.
Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see if this helps or hurts Romney in the long run. My guess is that the left is, once again, overplaying its hand.
“The real fear is: is it more like 51% who are dependent upon “the Government”, that is, upon the earnings of the other 49%? That’s the only metric that really matters in an election.” – cellec
There is another metric which matters, and that is “What percentage of both groups correctly self-identifies with the group they are actually part of?”
I understand the point you are making, yet the modifier I mention bears on it heavily. It has been stated regarding Romney’s comments that they’re really not all that harmful to him because most of the 47% he speaks of do not recognize themselves as part of that group (either willfully, or out of ignorance to reality). I suspect there may be much truth to this.
Idiots like this are why conservatives and Christians need to drop the business majors and take up Sociology, Psychology and some of the other soft sciences
It is often that the lieberals haven’t so much won the field in these areas as it is that they were abandoned by those who know better.
This woman’s arguments are so easy to refute that it is laughable but I’d bet a dollar to a doughnut hole that when she was hired every applicant held radical leftist views.
The left thinks they are smart because nobody challenges them and they are unchallenged because conservatives studied finance.
Often a Confidence Artist walks away with the mark’s money, leaving the mark praising him as a friend and helper, never grasping that how completely he’s fallen for the con.
It’s the credulous victim. Someone who believes that he’s too smart to be fooled, that he deserves a goodie, that there really is a tooth fairy…
The leftward-hurtling element of our culture believe despite all evidence otherwise that the Bush administration were fully aware of the imminent attacks of September 11, 2001. I suppose it’s just consistency, that they utterly reject the stark statement of Libya’s PRESIDENT (Whom we substantially helped come into his office…) that he had given our government several days warning of intelligence on impending attacks.
The evidence keeps tumbling out in ton lots that our own government is populated by the most perverted traitors the world has ever assembled.
Obama’s administration is necrotizing fascitis to our nation.
Will we have any wholesome flesh remaining after the cure?
Why is Romney being pilloried for reasonable statements on the presidential response to the Cairo and Libya attacks, voters influenced by welfare, and Palestinian leaders whose authority relies on the conflict with Israel? Since when did the rules become so narrow for the acceptable views a Presidential candidate can hold?
At what point will voters question why the media is attacking as ‘gaffes’ statements, whether on or off the record, that are not outrageous in the 1st place?
The recent spate, even if it’s unplanned, of delineating concrete positions that cut through the rest of the forgettable fuzzy electioneering noise and draw bright lines of contrast between Romney and Obama may turn out to be a turning point in Romney’s favor. The start of an argument for Romney rather than just against Obama.
10. maineman
Have you seen the essay over at First Things on “A Mandate to Disobey”?
Key section of the essay:
But even if the mandate is overturned, in part or in whole, it reflects a social and political movement that will not stop pushing for coercive policies.
Progressives see the sexual revolution as an important moral achievement, and they want to institutionalize it as a genuine human good, indeed a fundamental human right. This requires more than legalization, for by their way of thinking freedom is not freedom without the ability to exercise it, unrestrained by financial or other limits. Catholics and others must not give in to a view of human health and well-being that sees dignity in terms of liberated personal desires rather than moral reality.
For many, the question of contraception seems an unimportant sideline, a “Catholic issue.” This is short-sighted. Our secular age is developing increasingly perverse views of health and care: pregnancy as disease, abortion as treatment, assisted suicide and sex-change surgery as kinds of medical care. The Affordable Care Act creates a nationalized, mandatory system for health-care financing. This necessarily nationalizes and makes more urgent the bioethical debates of our time.
We cannot presume that we will win these debates. We need to begin planning for the possibility of civil disobedience.
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/09/a-mandate-to-disobey
There is a scary subtext to Romney’s comment about 47% being socialist leeches:
At what point does a nation stop working for a living and instead vote for a living (always vote for socialist demagogues like Obama who offer them free government cheese)?
If 51% of the voting population are socialist leeches then “we’re done”, the American political experiment has failed. If Romney is correct, then we’re 4% away from being finished.
Additional scary bit: Most opinion polls have a margin of error of 5%.
Recently “a Tunisian Salafist leader on Monday escaped from a
I’m sorry, this is all quite grim and serious, but I still had to read that three times before it stopped coming out something about a tuna fish.
“That is hellish vision that many Americans came to America to escape. And hell followed after.”
Most people trying to escape are running away from themselves. That is difficult if not impossible. Puritans were not only fleeing religious oppression, they were seeking a place to practice their own religious repression.
Evangelical Christians are just as bad as Muslims from the POV of an agnostic skeptic.
It is the height of arrogance for Christians to push their religion on others and not expect those others to push back.
Wretchards hidden church plan would work, but it would be just as effective to make Proselytizing illegal. So when some loser comes a-knocking on my door Sunday morning I can call the cops and have him arrested. When God wants me, he knows where I am. He doesn’t need the help of some fool. I say fool because anybody who thinks Proselytizing is doing something for God that he can’t do on his own IS a fool.
Enjoy God and your relationship with God. Stop trying to force your opinion on God down the throats of other people and other people will stop trying to force their opinion on God down your throat. THAT is religious freedom.
When God wants to touch someone, God will. If you could help him or stop him, he wouldn’t be GOD.
Charlie don’t surf.
Abortion and most variant forms of sexuality seem self defeating…in the long term. Too bad freedom of speech extends to the practitioners while they are busily removing themselves from the gene pool.
Actually, this gives me a “strange new respect” for Romney. Maybe he gets it after all. His speaking was also extremely eloquent, not a hem or a haw anywhere. You ever hear Obama talk that way? Romney was speaking like the high-powered executive he is. If only he can translate that on the stump, and at the debates.
On the other hand, he’s probably moving too fast for half the population to follow him.
As a minor side-bar, the film writer Richard Brody, over at the New Yorker (whom I enjoy when he speaks about film), referenced “the political obscenity of [Romney's] remarks.” I mention this because Brody is a perfect weather vane for the ultra-Progressive types that make up the media. He finds Romney’s comments — mere statements of fact, really — impossibly offensive. So sensitive!
But this is what we have to deal with: an entire industry driven by people who make a fetish out of dependency. I can’t wait to see how this video is thrown in Romney’s face during the debates by the Orcs who will be moderating.
I am very concerned about the youth of this country. They have been totally brainwashed by the likes of Lisa Diamond and her friends.
These fantasyland concepts like hers have only gained legitimacy because the RINO’s and the moderates in our midst refuse to confront the abject, wanton evil underlying the fantasies of the Hard Left. They always defend their right to free speech, but almost always in the same breath, refuse to criticize the destructive intent. That has to stop. If moderates, and RINO’s would actually confront the insanity of these theories, people like Lisa would gain no traction in the public square.
The juxtaposition of Mitt and Loony Lisa is interesting. While, I’m happy to hear that Mitt does acknowledge the 47% dependent factor, it is very sad he will only discuss these issues behind closed doors.
If Mitt loses this election it will be because he refused to openly level with the American People. Essentially he has refused to tell the whole truth. He has refused to simply provide answers to this dismal economy and our disastrous foreign policy that most people can understand. And don’t even talk to me about his position papers. Position papers are fig leafs that obscure and muddle issues when a politician doesn’t want to really come out and say something directly.
Mitt’s RINO fear of confronting evil has helped Obama define the issues of this campaign, in the way Obama has wanted, when he has wanted, much to the detriment of MItt.
This 47% comment may have boxed MItt into a corner; mebbe it’s time for MItt to come out swinging and tell the whole, unvarnished truth. For once, please.
The Democratic Party is a cancer, and, like cancer, the only cure is death, for them or for us. The slightly left of center Democratic Party of my youth is no more, having been captured by the hard left in 1972. The Democratic Party was the party of slavery, and was put down for several generations after the Civil War, but re-emerged as a political force in the wake of the calamity of the Great Depression. And now, after eighty years of slow drip socialism, the election of Barack Obama has changed the slow drip into a full out sprint for the cliff. There is still time, but if Obama is re-elected the United States as it was is gone, possibly forever, certainly gone for the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren, gone until the inevitable financial collapse of the socialist model and resulting anarchy. We are now two countries, two societies, the workers and the non-workers, the productive and the non-productive. The goal of the Democratic Party is the creation of a plantation class of voters subservient to and dependent upon the Federal government, whose votes will keep the Left in permanent control of the government and country. And they have succeeded. Why, in the face of the worst economic times in memory, in the face of one disaster after another, in the face of a president who bows to foreign kings, is Obama leading in the polls? Why is Romney not ahead by fifteen points? In a rational world he would be, but this is no longer a rational country. The Democrats have used the Federal treasury to build the world’s largest slave plantation, and the rest of us feel the whip. I am praying for my country while I am still allowed to pray.
W: You are on to something. There is a resurgence of monastic life here in the US, especially traditional Catholic values. See http://www.newmountcarmelfoundation.org/ Take a peak and tell me it would not be a great place to escape the meltdown that is coming.
As a Catholic, I go to Latin mass and seek counsel from like minded people who understand that traditions that are lost destroy communities. Hang in there, God has a plan and in the end – He wins!!!!!!!
W.: “Can two religions, one which believes in turning the other cheek, and the other which believes in bringing more explosive long coexist?”
Sure and look at what is going to be on sale in France’s newstands tomorrow:
http://www.charliehebdo.fr/la-une
from wikipedia:
‘In the early hours of November 2, 2011 the newspaper’s office in the 20th arrondissement[7] was fire-bombed and its website hacked. The attacks were presumed linked to its decision to rename a special edition “Charia Hebdo”, with the Prophet Mohammed listed as the “editor-in-chief”.[8] The cover, featuring a cartoon of Mohammed by Luz (Renald Luzier) had circulated on social media for a couple of days.’
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo)
and also schedule for this weekend in Paris and other cities in France:
protest marchs under the banner of ”Dont touch my Prophet”
see : http://tinyurl.com/8p7wsxy
regards
SF
When I first read about Romney’s remarks the following lines came at once to mind: “and I shall give you Government Cheese, if you will bow down and worship me.” The actual source is of course from Matthew: “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ‘All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will bow down and worship me.’”
So there were entitlement programs even then. What is always mentioned last — even the devil mentions it last — is the ‘conditions apply’ phrase. The fine print: “if you will bow down and worship me”. Julia should read the fine print. Lisa Diamond should read the fine print, if she has the wit to do it.
Progressivism has come to inevitable fascist phase, which it always reaches in the end, always. I remember coming to same youthful realization under some bridge or while waiting in some hut. And perhaps because I had the reference set, it dawned on me how tremendous was the information content of the New Testament and the Bible in general.
It’s a shock to find that, as Dostoevsky put it, it is always about the Eternal Questions. The same old conundrums baffle every generation. And on that matter Christ had much more to say in his laconic and parabolic style than the turgid tomes of Karl Marx, Lenin or Mao-Tse Tung. Finding these insights into freedom, meaning and human life — and the New Testament is wall to wall with them — is like climbing different peaks in life — in politics, war, disease and joy and thinking ‘I am the first to reach this’ only see inscribed “Jesus was here” inscribed on every summit.
And while His actual divinity may be a matter of some doubt, it seems abundantly clear that He is unlikely to have been the mere creation of some fishermen’s tales. They could not have conceived it. At the very least He was a great teacher. And because those ideas have survived the Roman Empire, Islam, Nazism and Communism and everything else in between, I am convinced that the ideas He preached will be asked in the human heart “even unto the ending of the world”.
And what questions they are!
Do we want to be free? Are were mere collections of lusts and desires? Is there some spark in us that reaches upward? Does love exist in the Universe? What can Lisa Diamond tell me about this? Nothing other than that she wants to destroy the ability to ask those questions. But she will not succeed. Therefore: be not afraid. All humanity has trodden this path before and we too shall see things through.
“Stop trying to force your opinion on God down the throats of other people and other people will stop trying to force their opinion on God down your throat.” – stoicheion
I do not believe that this is a justifiable notion. What evidence is there, that if one religious or ideological group stopped preaching the merits of their belief system, a competing religious/ideological group would decide to do the same?
History seems, to the contrary, replete with examples that when one set of ideals surrenders the field, another invariably rushes in to fill the void and supplant it. This has been true throughout history in terms of politics, religion, economics, you name it.
Man has a seemingly inherent need to proselytize w/r/t his beliefs in all these fields. I think the real issue is not so much putting a stop to proselytizing, as attenuating our sensitivity to it and the idea that we should be offended by it when it comes from those whose beliefs we do not share.
W @ 22: Why, in the face of the worst economic times in memory, in the face of one disaster after another, in the face of a president who bows to foreign kings, is Obama leading in the polls? Why is Romney not ahead by fifteen points?
I dunno, but I will point out it worked for FDR, too.
Maybe I don’t wanna know. That slightly left of center Democratic Party of your youth, was maybe further left in retrospect, the farther retro it becomes.
Another reason, and my history is not quite strong enough to compare and contrast with times gone by, is that Mitt does not deserve to be 15 points ahead. I hope he does deserve to win and indeed does so by a modest but certain margin, but I’m far from sanguine about what follows even then.
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u @ 21: I am very concerned about the youth of this country. They have been totally brainwashed by the likes of Lisa Diamond and her friends.
Well, I’ve accidentally done a short survey in the last 24 hours of some (non-youth) libtards, and come up with their following rationales:
* Mitt Romney is a Republican, and thus automatically out of the question.
* It’s all Bush’s fault.
* A voucher system couldn’t possibly work for Medicare, are you crazy (this from a medical professional)
* Obama has done so much for us. What? Americans killed somewhere?
* Iran having a nuclear weapon is just their search for respect, they’d never use it, nuclear weapons are never used, it’s self-evident.
* I can’t vote for Obama because he is not pro-Israel, but I cannot vote for Romney, are you kidding?
–
Now also news that Morsi has instructed the Egyptian embassy to take action against anti-Islamic pastor and film-maker. I believe the least that calls for is immediate expulsion of their ambassador. Let’s see what happens. That, do you think, or Holder joins in the effort, Hildabeast and Obambus make public speeches supporting? Place yer wagers, ladies and gentlemen.
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w @ 25: and thinking ‘I am the first to reach this’ only see inscribed “Jesus was here” inscribed on every summit.
Maybe, but Ecclesiastes, “There is nothing new under the sun” deserves some consideration for priority as well.
W: Now you are going full existential. I am not one to quote chapter and verse of the bible but during my altarboy days at the end of every mass the Gospel of St.John was read to remind the elect what life was all about – sort of like the libs reading Ms. Dowd every Sunday morning.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him. Without him was not anything made that has been made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn’t overcome it.”
And it never will.
W:
“I think we should revive secret Christianity.”
I have often thought it will come to this.
“We should challenge marriage … I do want to slowly poison and destroy the marriage institution…” Lisa Diamond
Lisa Diamond is a Marxist.
“Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists. On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain… The bourgeois [middle class] family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement [private property] vanishes…” Karl Marx
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html
w@6 – I think we should revive secret Christianity. Instead of meeting in public churches, they should be in upper rooms or at isolated locations
Doing so will probably violate zoning ordinances
re: Stoi @ 18 ..God speaks with events & occurances, perhaps your recent illness may be a 2×4 being used, trying to get your attention…as in getting the attention of a mule…people are put in your path for a reason, its up to you what you make of them…
18. stoicheion
Proselytizing is just a fact of life. Knocking on my door are the Sierra Club, UNESCO, the Socialist Party, the Conservative Party, the Green Party, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons, the Red Cross, women’s this and women’s that, petitions to save something, petitions to stop something and door to door salesmen. Far away from my door I’ve had religious conversion attempts from Hindus (not supposed to proselytize), Sikhs and Moslems.
I just accept everyone’s freedom to proselytize. Everyone is an earnest keener with something to sell. I say let them go to it. It can lead to some unique conversations. Live and let live.
The sad thing about Lisa or Luigi Diamond or whatever its name is is that this is occurring at the University of Utah right out in Squaresville, Mormon country.
That is definitely a deep insertion of cultural anarchy into a bastion of the old America. The sophomore mush brained student who was dazzled by Diamond’s colossal heaping pile of cowsh*t is probably a jack Mormon girl who is going through her rebellious stage before heading home to the family compound.
The themes of Diamond’s scholarly articles tell you everything you need to know about what a freak show the left is (her picture adds to the imagery)
stoicheion 18: “Evangelical Christians are just as bad as Muslims from the POV of an agnostic skeptic.”
stoicheion needs to start posting his irrational anti-Christian bigotry over at Huffington Post where it belongs. American Evangelical Christians are not just as bad as Muslims from any point of view, because they don’t subjugate non-Christians into second class citizenship under Sharia-like laws, nor do they legally murder those who renounce the Christian faith, nor do they legally murder those who insult Jesus Christ or God the Father, nor do they legally murder homosexuals, nor do they legally commit Islamic-type polygamy or Islamic-type child rape (child “marriage”). It takes a special kind of mental poison to find equivalency between Islam and American Evangelical Christianity.
The only thing Evangelical Christians are guilty of is exercising their non-violent Christian religion and freedom of speech in public. The only thing Evangelical Christians are guilty of is exercising their God-given unalienable right to liberty. Your desire to have the police arrest Evangelical Christians for the “crime” of liberty is an indication of your desire for tyranny – just as bad as Muslim tyranny.
Here’s a suggestion; if you don’t want Christians at your door, rather than calling the Gestapo, post a sign in your yard which says “No Christian proselytizing allowed.”
“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will [Christian proselytizing] within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others [to ignore or say no to Christian proselytizing]. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual [to the free exercise of religion and speech].” Thomas Jefferson
@#1 SteveSmith,
I take exception and umbrage at your use of “prize Charlies”. Maybe I should pen a sarcastic post denigrating “prize SteveSmiths”. Cool it, chump.
Romney has missed a huge opportunity. The 47%, if accurate, assumes 100% of those on support are there because they choose to be there. The larger issue is that people don’t challenge the premise that those folks desire to remain in the degrading spot they find themselves.
Similarly, after unemployment numbers are released indicating 8.3% unemployment, many experts chime in that the number is much higher because the reported numbers don’t include those who have “quit looking”.
Those are fallacies. Many of those folks are in the position they are in because of the failed policies of this administration and the congress. Similarly they are looking for work or are under employed – there just aren’t enough jobs to absorb the huge losses. Hell the new job numbers aren’t keeping up with the natural increase in the available work force.
To assume that all of the hard-working, industrious people are on welfare and wish to remain on welfare is bull shit.
I can remember back in the 1980′s when they were giving out government cheese — I mean real cheese (well, almost real). The G was storing cheese for years as a way of propping up dairy prices. Apparently they ran out of caverns to put it in and decided to give it away. It came in these 5lb blocks and anyone could stop by and pick them up (I think you had to say you were hungry or something). I didn’t go get it myself but I knew a lot of people who did. One of them gave me a hunk of it. It was like Velveeta.
About that time I was dating a woman who got involved in “Hands Across America.” Somehow hands across America was suppose to combat homelessness and hunger and like conditions. How was it suppose to do this? By electing Democrats, near as I could tell. The hand holding would extend from LA to the White House.
So I’m dating this girl who is involved in organizing it locally but I can’t help myself. I said it should produce a better class of government cheese. So I began calling it “Quiche across America!”
I even came up with a chant. “Hey, Hey, what you say? How’s about a government souffle!” Made of cheese, of course. It didn’t catch on.
I was thinking maybe we could have hands across America for the unemployed. I know, it would go against tradition because there is a Democrat in the White House. Who would have time to do it? Well, the unemployed have the time. It wouldn’t be fair to Obama to hold the event before the election. We should schedule it for the day after the inauguration. That way he could join the line and we’d have a Republican in the White House and the event will show that the country cares once more about, well, you name it.
stoicheion is right about many things. Volition is necessary and sufficient. If you are provided an opportunity to witness, in the case of someone who wants to discuss, then do so, but do it properly. Be studied and prepared, not ham-handed and clumsy. Then, and this is most important, after the person stops asking questions or falls into silence, depart. Leave them alone with their thoughts.
You’re not there to rend a confession about their wicked past or evoke a teary plea for salvation. Maybe you planted a seed. Perhaps someone else will come along to reap the harvest. So be it. But never be a bore, or overbearing. If they are not interested, forget it.
Take your lesson from the master. The gospel presentation to Nicodemus, or the Samaritan woman at the well. Don’t push if someone has no interest. You can always tell if a fish is nibbling at the bait.
If they are not interested, leave them alone. It’s called privacy.
@ #35 Storm_Rider
maybe you should read Stoich’es line once more and think on it a bit. Pay particular attention to the part that says: “…from the POV of an agnostic skeptic.”….
I feel I should say something to cheer you guys up and help you galvanise yourselves for the job ahead. Like hey its OK, 47% is not the majority!
From the fringes of the Anglosphere we know that what happens now in the US is heading our way in a few years or less. Oh shit. I didnt think ‘After America’ was supposed to happen so soon.
The US and Australia have the relatively healthiest demographics and economies in the West, and yet the populations still are morphing into demoralised government dependent drudges, where the Left has a permamnent structural majority. HTF will we deal with this Islamic Fascism thing when everybody is getting paid sit down money?
Is that it, the End of History?
I was just discussing with a friend how the Boy Scouts in San Diego were sued by a homosexual rights group for use of public property of Balboa Park because the Boy Scouts wanted to exercise their right to associate with whom they chose and did not want to promote openly homosexual scout masters. The succeeded in having the Boy Scouts evicted. I was loosely involved in a group that applied to have a straight peoples contingent in the annual Gay Pride Parade. The homosexual Nazi’s got a court order from a judge to block us from joining because the gays did not want to associate with us.
36. Charley Hua Chu
“Charlie” has long been used in Indian English as a colloquial substitute for nincompoop. It is also used the same way in English English. Sorry if the term offended you – first time that’s happened in my experience. Feel free to denigrate “stevesmith”.
wretchard @ 25 – As long as we’re talking about government cheese, don’t forget how Matthew Chapter 4 starts: “Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.””
Stones into bread! Something for nothing! Free bread! Free free free! The whole chapter is a beautiful condensed lesson on what the Devil tells us power should be used for: stones into bread = ending hunger. Throw yourself down and the angels will catch you = saving from physical harm. Offering all the empires of the earth = political power. To do good, of course! What sort of hardline fanatic could argue with that? And Jesus did do all the good the Devil was tempting him with, but in the right way, in obedience to God, not Satan. Our governments have made the wrong decision, and they took the Devil’s bargain in order to do good. The results are all around us.
43 stevesmith – Ah, another hoser who probably grew up listening to the BBC on the CBC! Of course “Charlie” is English slang, often meaning a dope, but also just “a guy”. Does no one study ‘Pygmalion’ anymore? :
THE FLOWER GIRL [protesting] Who’s trying to deceive you? I called him Freddy or Charlie same as you might yourself if you was talking to a stranger and wished to be pleasant. [She sits down beside her basket].
Another excellent post, Wretchard, and beautiful comments at 6 and 25.
But I must disagree with your statement regarding Jesus that “at the very least He was a great teacher.” He claimed to be nothing less than the Son of God. If He isn’t, then He’s not a great teacher, He’s a fraud. C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity makes the case for the divinity of Christ far better than I can.
The Lisa Diamonds of this world are numerous and noisy, and their influence is growing, but you are right…they will not succeed in the end. Perhaps they will for awhile, even in our lifetimes. Christians still meet in secret in certain countries, and it may yet happen here, who knows.
“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Thank you for the work you do here. It’s important and much appreciated.
”stoicheion needs to start posting his irrational anti-Christian bigotry over at Huffington Post where it belongs.”
Stoicheion has merely removed the velvet wrapping from his sword. Though he may have lost his touch with children, he can rightly expect adults to address the content of his ideas rather than their presentation.
There has been no anti-Christianity in his words. Some might say that Christ instructed his followers to ‘go among the people and spread the word’ but he also said ‘let them come to me’ or words to that effect.
The above comment has no place in this or any other forum and merely serves to prove stoicheion’s point.
“The whole notion of Freedom of Speech rests on the idea that whatever befall, government should not take sides in matters of belief — whether that belief is couched as religion or ideology. No sect should be permitted to capture the funding of the state or its moral and legal authority to advance itself. Otherwise the end state of a society will not be one of religious tolerance but religious monopoly, or perhaps duopoly, in which the only remaining sects which are ruthless enough to suppress, murder or drive into hiding their more gentle competitors survive. In a word it will be a society in which the Left and Radical Islam may emerge the only two remaining choices. Then you can select between the civility of the liberal activist or the tolerance of Salafist imam.”
Charlie Hedo is going to publish trivial carricatures of Mahomet.
http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/societe/20120918.OBS2795/charlie-hebdo-publie-des-caricatures-de-mahomet-ayrault-desapprouve.html
-http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2012/09/18/01016-20120918ARTFIG00616–charlie-hebdo-caricature-a-nouveau-mahomet.php
Though our government is disapproving such a mediatic operation, currently following the violents muslim strikes across the planet, it is seen as irresponsable.
I too think it’s irresponsable, while being for freedom of opinions, one has to remain diplomatic in a certain context. The Muslims don’t understand our humor and its cultural references (actually in the pic from the above link, it’s the french movie chosen for the next “oscars” competion), they mostly see it as a offense from arrogant westernies) to their poor condition, not always to their belief.
Let us try to hold a person asking to be Commander in Chief of our great nation to a different standard than any wacko you can drag up, okay?
Here’s a couple of Diamond’s scholarly tomes:
“Sexual-minority women’s sexual motivation around the time of ovulation.” Translation : if a dyke ovulates in the forest and no one has a turkey baster handy, did it really happen?
“Every time you go away: Changes in affect, behavior, and physiology associated with travel-related separations from romantic partners”. Lisa, how can we miss you if you won’t go away?
“Individual differences in vagal regulation moderate associations betweeen daily affect and daily couple interactions.” Okay Lisa, you got me , what is a vagal regulation? Is that a new government agency to regulate chastity belts? Or maybe Chastity Bono….oh wait , sorry Chaz…
18. stoicheion,
Don’t worry about those knocking at your door, He’s already inside your head.
“What evidence is there, that if one religious or ideological group stopped preaching the merits of their belief system, a competing religious/ideological group would decide to do the same?”
The Constitution of the United States of America. It has allowed Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Buddhists, Shinto, 7th day Adventist and even Socialists. I apoligise to the thousands I left out.
For centuries wacko religions congregated in America. Maybe it was because there was so much room but they all got along reasonably well. That has changed over the last 2 generations. WHY? I blame socialism.
“Don’t worry about those knocking at your door, He’s already inside your head.”
Great. Maybe he will find that brain cell I lost. Then I’ll have two and be able to keep up with you.
Haji can’t shoot.
All your bleatings, even your most dismal expressions of despair are far below me, like the low hanging cumulus as I race among the cirro-stratus. Go ahead and chatter among yourselves of doom defeat and disaster; you cannot me distress.
I’m listening to Youtube videos of 12-year-old mezzo-soprano Jackie Evancho singing.
Just chanced upon one of her performances on PBS last week. It was like being a sailor on the ocean in a tiny boat when a vast wave suddenly arises, and shows you the titanic power our universe has at its command. I’ve been playing music for all but a few years of my six decades, and I’ve only been overwhelmed like that a few times.
Keep some tissues near to hand. Unless your heart is granite, her voice will wring tears from your eyeballs for sure.
I do think that Romney spoke in an inaccurate way – and that he could have done better. Though I know that politicians have to simplify things to the point of absurdity.
My mom is one of those people dependent on government (SS Checks), and she is certainly voting for Romney. As are a lot of people she knows. I’m not critical either, as Dad paid a lot into the system for a long time to make it so.
Meanwhile the 47% probably does not include teachers, inspectors, police etc. Some of whom arguably should be privatized. But “employed by” and “dependent on” are not the same thing. A large portion of those employed by the government will be voting for Obama.
The difference between the Romney people and the Obama people has a lot to do with ideology – rather than sending or receiving money. I think Romney could have gotten a little more nuanced with his group of sophisticated supporters. His failure to do so does concern me a little, though I’ll still be voting for him.
25 @wretchard
As someone who is somewhere in the realm of Deist/agnostic, I’m not a fan of organized religion. I think I’ve said some rude stuff here about a few of those religions here because of my disdain for the human hierarchical structures that compose it, and I regret stooping to cheap shots to make a point in anger.
That being said, this was a most beautiful post, Richard. It really made an impact on me, thank you.
46. MSO
Thank you. My oldest dearest friend is a black preacher at an all black (except for me once a year or so) church in Mississippi. I have spent decades going up and down this street. My morals and values are consistent with Christianity, I just cannot accept Christ as anything more then a Prophet. If God has a problem with that, He’ll change my mind for me.
Haha! I remember that cheese giveaway back in the 1980s. My parents (both working) partook because they were raising two kids and the gubmint was desperate to get rid of it. It came in a plain cardboard box with some sort of official type stamping on it. It was indeed exactly like a Velveeta cheese brick.
I’ve eaten my share of government cheese back in early 80′s. Wasn’t bad; a very mild cheddar as I recall.
My grandmother being “elderly”, qualified to receive a cheese allotment. Being shrewd, as well as thrifty and elderly, she took her free cheese, and passed it on to me, her college-age grandson. My roommates and I ate on that cheese for several semesters, until we got tired of it. We had to buy our own crackers, though.
stoicheion 18: Evangelical Christians are just as bad as Muslims from the POV of an agnostic skeptic.”
MSO 46: “There has been no anti-Christianity in his words.”
If there is one thing worse than anti-Christian bigotry, it is the bald face denial of palpable anti-Christian bigotry. stoicheion made no point other than to irrationally equate peaceful American Evangelical Christians with coercive, totalitarian, mass-murdering Muslims and their passive Muslim enablers and supporters.
35. Storm_Rider
I don’t think that word means what you think it does;
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bigotry
from Marrim Webster;
“: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance”
I am not obstinate about my opinions. If you have FACTS I will listen and adjust my opinion accordingly.
FACT: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm
FACT: From 1184 AD to Today, torture and murder are official policies of the Catholic church;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition.
That is not bigotry or Opinion, it is cold hard FACT. The first link is to the official opinion of the Catholic church as to why they had the right to torture and murder people.
What you or I think about those facts won’t change them. If you are comfortable with them, good for you. I don’t care what your beliefs are. I’m just happy you have some.
I do resent being called a bigot because you are short on information.
I apologise for over posting but I do resent being a punching bag for zelots. No capital so I’m using that word as a synonym for fanatic.
9. MarkJ
Interesting.
I actually thought about Oberst Enzian and his Schwartz Kommando.
Remember the steril sex acts they pursued in order to become the last of the Herero tribe?
http://catdirtsez.blogspot.com/2010/06/oberst-enzian-and-his-schwartz-kommando.html
stoicheion 56: “My morals and values are consistent with Christianity…”
If you accept Christian morals and values, then why do you have such contempt for your Evangelical Christian neighbor who wishes you no harm, and who, based on those same morals and values, will never harm you or your family?
Evangelical Christians signed the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, and they stormed the beaches of North Africa, Sicily, Normandy, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Saipan (my Christian father among them), spilling their blood so you and your family can rightfully possess your God-given rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
Your links to the intolerance and bigotry of Medieval Catholics has no bearing on today’s Evangelical American Christian, and I would say it bears no relation to today’s American Catholic. Why are you still fighting an evil which died out centuries ago on a Continent our forefathers abandoned? Don’t you think there is a religious evil today which requires our united will and strength to defeat? Why in the hell can’t American atheists and agnostics stop this irrational intolerance against their American Christian neighbor?
BTW, the best and simplest definition of bigotry is irrational intolerance.
Marie Claude 47,
Why be “diplomatic”? While it is true that Churchill said that there was no harm in being polite to a man if you intended to kill him it is also true that he knew as Napoleon did that the “Moral was to the physical as three to one.” Both Gallic and Anglo-Saxon experience confirm this. You can’t win unless you rally the troops, and ridicule is an essential part of that. You can’t get around that with an elegant argument. It is hard wired in to humans. Combat is an emotional experience. For that I am thankful. The unemotional technicians of death are the truly insane.
Many people misunderestimate Salt Lake City and the University of Utah. A friend from college taught at UU once. Salt Lake ostentatiously sees itself as the radical enclave in the Mormon wilderness. They compared themselves to Berlin which never supported the NDSAP, providing refuge to liberals communists and jews, until that is the Red Army arrived to shoot them. People at UU would actually say “See I’m drinking coffee. Aren’t I wicked?”
The problem with Lisa Diamond is our old friend the Agency Problem. America is packed with people who believe they have sinecures. They extract wealth without regard to the interests or rights of the people who ostensibly control the purse strings. The citizens of Utah have no control over how their taxes are spent. The elected authorities and the legislature are powerless. Review the history of the French Revolution to see where judicially enforced special privileges against the wishes of the legislature leads.
The key moment when socialist judges usurped power was IMHO 1999 when Nina Gershon ordered funding restored to the Brooklyn Museum, despite a Joint Resolution of Congress backing withdrawing funds, and ordered the elected Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to cease any actions against the museum. The same judge more recently rejected the Act of Congress defunding Acorn. That decision was overturned but Acorn has predictably reconstituted itself.
It is not just marriage they want to get rid of. Imagine there’s no property…it is easy if you try. Matt Yglesias comes to Barack Obama’s rescue and explain what Obama is really all about…
The matter is the contrast between
1 the culture of life
2 the culture of death
Christian Culture is the culture of life
The Aztecs and their modern equivalents in the Levant- with its cults of tribal religions- are the culture of death.
36. Charley Hua Chu re “prize Charlies”:
First, a cheery Gesundheit!
Next, I didn’t understand SteveSmith’s “prize Charlies” meaning until your tone of umbrage appeared way down here. It’s the “Charlie” that we Vietnam Vets had as our on-the-ground enemy over there. (Viet Cong = V.C. = Victor Charlie in military fanatic/phonetic.) It fits S.S.’s context. I had to switch to “Chuck” while in-country because “Charlie” already meant the enemy. Are you confirming it still does?
Don’t mess with SteveSmith — he’s a retired forestry pro who can handle himself if you axe for it again.
Look, hard-core leftists like Diamond are the most miserable, selfish, neurotic people in the world. Diamond in particular is what, a psychology professor? Hoo boy. Talk about being in your own private hell. Of course she’s calling for the destruction of marriage as we know it – she’s jealous as hell of every happy, loving married couple she’s ever known. When people like this speak of “equality,” what they mean is that they want everyone around them to be as equally miserable as they are.
Stoicheion, maybe you’re not a bigot, though you sure sound like one. I get a lot of poor souls at my door seeking to recruit me to their righteousness competition club. I just decline the conversation. Strangely, for Christian fanatics indistinguishable from Muslim fanatics, I’ve never yet been killed by any of them, nor even offered any threats of violence when I did so. Maybe we live on different planets? I’ve shared my faith with a lot of people. Some have walked away. Have I erred in not punishing them with blood and death? Maybe I’m not a real Catholic after all.
Inquisitively, despite being close friends with a black preacher, do you have any idea of what Christianity might really be?
18. stoicheion
Well, in this post you pushed a lot of bulconguava down my throat. Perhaps you ought to practice what you “preach.”
Say, don’t your comments epitomize the very concept of the thread?
7. CharlesWhite
Very True Charles; next to ensure my brand of Muscular Christianity does not offend Him andd place me in the cadre of CINOs.
@Storm Rider #62
“Why in the hell can’t American atheists and agnostics stop this irrational intolerance against their American Christian neighbor?”
See John 15:19
“The Constitution of the United States of America. It has allowed Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Buddhists, Shinto, 7th day Adventist and even Socialists. I apoligise to the thousands I left out.” – stoicheion
But this is not evidence of a lack of the phenomenon I cited. None of those religions stopped proselytizing, and the Constitution is (at least for now) unchanged w/r/t the freedom of those groups to practice their respective religions, and to proselytize and seek to spread their faiths if they see fit to do so.
“For centuries wacko religions congregated in America. Maybe it was because there was so much room but they all got along reasonably well. That has changed over the last 2 generations. WHY? I blame socialism.”
I think you’re making an assumption that religious congregations have historically gotten along friction free in this nation. . .until recently. This is not the case. For much of the early history of this nation, there was major friction between Protestants and Catholics, evidence of which can be found in virtually all historical writings of the time. At one point, Mormons were expelled from Missouri by the governor of the state! It hasn’t always been a bed of roses for competing religions in this nation.
The last century was a period of relative calm on this front. What has truly changed, of late (IMHO), is that now many people have adopted the notion that they have a right not to be offended. . .that they shouldn’t have to be exposed to anything with which they disagree. Now, they feel they can (and should) litigate and legislate to limit the ability of others to practice constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, in order to avoid being offended by those with whom they disagree. It disgusts me, but it seems to be the reality.
At the root of it, I cannot conceive of a situation where one religion/ideology in this nation stops proselytizing or winning people over to their beliefs, and an opposing/competing viewpoint decides to follow suit.
@70 “Very True Charles; next to ensure my brand of Muscular Christianity does not offend Him andd place me in the cadre of CINOs.”
Modern Christians have lost sight of the message delivered by the founder of their religion. It was He who went amongst His ‘flock’ performing good works. Those who witnessed those good works and were impressed by them were attracted to Him and sought to learn more. It was then that His proselytizing took place.
Today, it is those who wish only to feel good about themselves that demonstrate their lack of respect for others by going door-to-door making a nuisance of themselves. Their fervor in their faith is so great they omit the step that requires them to first attract those to whom they would preach.
When their omission is pointed out to them and they are told that their approach is manifestly unwelcome, they take offense at what they see as in impingement upon their rights.
To make it clear, it is my yard you had to cross to reach my door to unwittingly or not insult my beliefs and impinge upon my privacy. It is you who cause an unwarranted offense with your elitism and self-assured righteousness.
If you are serious, you will take this message to heart; you must attract those to whom you preach through your public efforts and good works. As fishers of men, your net is your life’s work, not the unfortunate neighbor’s proximity to your home.
#62
Why in the hell can’t American atheists and agnostics stop this irrational intolerance against their American Christian neighbor?
I stopped a long time ago, and excoriate my fellow agnostics and fellow-traveler atheists as often as I can for being assholes. Not much luck so far. Sorry
#73
Modern Christians have lost sight of the message delivered by the founder of their religion.
And modern Americans have lost sight of the “message” of our founders: They were already a free people, and fought to preserve what they already had. We are becoming an unfree people, and will therefore not have the fortitude to regain what our founders never lost.
MSO 73,
Your critique of Evangelical American Christians is no doubt true for some, because all people, including Evangelical American Christians (and American non-Christians) have fallen short of the glory of God. It is not my style or desire to go door-to-door spreading the message of Christ. Like you suggest, I find it more natural to attract non-Christians as a result of my kindness, intelligence and life’s work, and then speak about Christian faith if an opportune moment arises. Having said that, Christians who take the door-to-door approach should not be irrationally considered your enemy – because they are not going to enact unjust American laws which make non-Christians second class citizens as occurs under Islamic Sharia Law, and because they are not going to break you windows, burn down your house, rape your wife and daughters, and murder you.
Christians who go door-to-door are actually a small minority, and in my experience they do not “take offense at what they see as in impingement upon their rights” when rejected; rather, they will respect your right to privacy at home. If you loathe the Evangelical American Christian that much, just tell them “no thank you”, or put a sign in your yard that says “no Christian proselytizing” or “no soliciting”, but don’t succumb to stoicheion’s anti-Christian bigotry “So when some loser comes a-knocking on my door Sunday morning I can call the cops and have him arrested” – unless they ignore your yard sign or won’t take no for an answer. Don’t you think our laws and police should protect us from those whose religion legally authorizes coercion and subjugation of non-Muslims, polygamy, child rape, violence and murder; rather than arresting Evangelical Christians that hurt your delicate feelings by peacefully going door-to-door?
Don Rodrigo 74,
I wouldn’t mind having a good agnostic like you in a foxhole with me. Let’s watch each other’s back against the real enemy (totalitarian Islam). In the end God will sort out the wheat from the chaff, and I believe Jesus will be ther for you at the final judgement of our souls – whether or not you now believe in Him.
@73 MSO
That’s a wonderful point.
What has not been widely reported is what Romney also said in his speech:
Romney: [The] former head of Goldman Sachs, John Whitehead, was also the former head of the New York Federal Reserve. And I met with him, and he said as soon as the Fed stops buying all the debt that we’re issuing—which they’ve been doing, the Fed’s buying like three-quarters of the debt that America issues. He said, once that’s over, he said we’re going to have a failed Treasury auction, interest rates are going to have to go up. We’re living in this borrowed fantasy world, where the government keeps on borrowing money. You know, we borrow this extra trillion a year, we wonder who’s loaning us the trillion? The Chinese aren’t loaning us anymore. The Russians aren’t loaning it to us anymore. So who’s giving us the trillion? And the answer is we’re just making it up. The Federal Reserve is just taking it and saying, “Here, we’re giving it.” It’s just made up money, and this does not augur well for our economic future. You know, some of these things are complex enough it’s not easy for people to understand, but your point of saying, bankruptcy usually concentrates the mind.
How about dat? Mebbe, just mebbe ol’ MItt is comin round.
Stoi: I know this subject is important to you, but come on, how many door to door Christians do you really see? If they really bug you, they ain’t doin their job. I’m sure you’re much tougher than that. While you live in the south, mebbe that door to door thing may happen much more than in my heathen neighborhood, but where I live it doesn’t happen at all. The door to door thing here is for young black kids sellin magazines you wouldn’t want in a million years. Talk about annoying.
From John 13:35 “By all this people will know that are my disciples if you love one another”. If they behave in a way that bugs you, they aren’t showin you any love .
73. MSO
I may have given you too big a target and misled you with my term “Muscular Christianity.” I know what it means to me and it might offend some Christins and agnostics as well.
Some years ago I participated in the program “Evangelism Explosion” at my church and we ventured out on Monday evenings to present the Gospel. However, we never did “cold calling” that many found irritating and distrespectful. Instead, we collected names from new members who asked to be contacted – and then we called them to see if we could come over that evening. If they said “No Thank You,” or, “Not tonight,” we waived off. Forcing a visit where family issues could arise and force an embarrassing situation were considered by our pastor to be unproductive.
Personally, in my day to day operations, someone might ask me about a certain cultural or family difficulty and I can then tell them how I embrace my faith to find solutions to the problem. But I am not one who plies the Earth to rescue heathens from their tough situations. Christ came to “gather his flock” and open our minds to the light of the truth, but in reading the Bible, he is not normally overbearing in His presentation of Himself and in His explanation of the Gospel. We ought to respect that as well.
My use of the term “Muscular Christianity” refers more to my resolute passion to defend the faith. Probably that is somewhat of a thorn in my flesh because after I turn the other cheek as Christ expects of me, I also have desire to turn the other cheek “into” the one who slaps me.
Christ actually displayed that example when he was struck by the guard for his “audacity” of speaking the truth to the Sandedrin(John 18:23) and was struck by the official: “If I said something wrong, testify as to what is wrong. But if I spoke the truth, why did you strike me?“. Truth to power.
And yet, I understand there is always work for all Christians to attend to…I alluded to such in my quote: “…next to ensure my brand of Muscular Christianity does not offend Him and place me in the cadre of CINOs.”
One other thing to say.
I don’t bristle when an attack on the Christian faith is made that is deserved. When a Catholic Priest is discovered to have violated children, or a Southern Baptist preacher in one of the biggest mega churches in America breathes fire and brimstone about gay relationships, all the while have a homosexual affair himself, there is nothing much for me to defend or get irritated about if a non-faithful person points that out.
Luke 12:48 – “But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”
What I bristle at is gratuitous and malicious slanders.
63. Blast From the Past
in this occurence, Charlie Hebdo wanted to make a mediatic coup, prepared for a week (the magazine was sold out, already at 8 in the morning. Opportunism prevailed over true militantism. They have a double standard behaviour, playing the braves, but in reality not so braves, they are under our police protection, while the thousands of French abroad, in muslims countries, aren’t, they who will get the hit.
Some French Jews organisations condamn Charlie Hebdo bravade
http://www.challenges.fr/media/20120919.AFP9323/caricatures-les-juifs-partages-entre-desapprobation-et-soutien-a-charlie-hebdo.html