Stephen Morgan wrote:I blame the Nazis. Being anti-Semitic used to be fine, was very popular, then they came along and ruined it for everyone.
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Stephen Morgan wrote:I blame the Nazis. Being anti-Semitic used to be fine, was very popular, then they came along and ruined it for everyone.
Canadian_watcher wrote:..
Yes, I do believe that using the law to force prayer out of school *is* an example of people of a non-theist bent to force their non-theism on others.
wintler2 wrote:... and raise that little issue about infinite god being only masculine....
JackRiddler wrote:.
C_w, saw your post answering my question asking for examples of non-theists oppressing theists through law and force a while ago.
Now before you went and added the edit, I actually intended to reply as follows:
France? What an interesting example.
I commend you for not reaching for the usual canards of blaming Stalinist Russia or Maoist China on atheism, since of course neither of these states oppressed people because of any remotely rational atheism, but because of a secular religion that was actually a revival of the same God-Emperor cult we see in countless autocracies going all the way back to the Pharoahs. (I suppose the modern Chinese state, which is less ideologically cultish but just as oppressive of its people, including of religious movements, may be closer to an atheistic tyranny.)
Of course, you are also mad, but that's all right and I hope you don't take it the wrong way. Revolutionary France seized the long-held lands of the Catholic Church, 'tis true, and broke its power, surely with justification given the history of oppression and benightment the people had suffered under it; but the excesses of the Terror were also applied with cruelty to many a neck from the former First Estate, 'tis also true.
Today's France imposes measures like the 'burqa ban' in the name of secularism and protection of individual freedom, but these are thinly disguised religious intolerance angling for culturally right-wing voters, or really just plain hating on the unassimilated immigrants (not that I'm for burqas, mind you, just aware that a punitive law is not really meant as a solution any more than the NATO troops are in Afghanistan to advance women's rights).
And I wonder what you mean by the French detours? Because there were some Catholic and monarchical revivals or reactions in that country's history, sometimes verging on fascism; I hope you don't view these positively.
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Unfortunately, then you went and did that edit, and threw in the usual bogeymen of theist persecution, Stalin and Mao.
Okay. Preemptively answered above.
But then you took things decisively farther.
Are you really implying that the removal of Christianist ceremonies ("prayer") from US public schools is an oppression of religionists? I can't believe you'd really be for allowing the Christianists to use the country's public schools for brainwashing and to bully the non-conformists there, because of course that is exactly what would happen -- what already does happen, and would become a hundred times worse if it were given legal cover. Madalyn Murray O'Hare was a hero for pursuing that case.
As a child I was forced to attend a private school that practiced religious indoctrination on us, including interminable teacher-monitored church services on the Tuesdays; and that was still in a relatively liberal culture compared to what would be happening in a great many fundamentalist precincts of this nation. One of the things we learned in our church was that y'all's churches in Texas aren't the real thing. Sorry, there's only one original church, and it's Orthodox, and there is a Western wing of heretics run out of Rome, and all the rest is pure delusion and barely worth even acknowledging. That's the Christianity I learned.Canadian_watcher wrote:Christianity is certainly tied to a singular group: Christians.
This is not remotely a singular group.
This is a catch-all for a number of persuasions, many of which do not consider the others to be Christian. Christian churches have at many times been at war and burned each others' members freely, not to mention that library in Alexandria you were wondering about.
In fact, these sects were already at war with each other even before the Roman Empire decided to adopt Christianity as the right religion for keeping the slaves in order. (Results were mixed.) The greatest holiday native to our church alone (i.e., Orthodox holiday only) commemorates a fucking 30-year civil war and massacres over the question of whether you're allowed to draw a picture of Jesus.
I suppose the good guys must have won, because I like stuff like this:
An earlier conflict that people actually fought and died in, at least if you believe the Church tellings of the motives behind the killing, was about whether the Christ was all God or half-God half-man. Or wait, maybe whether he was all man or half-and-half prior to the Resurrection, and all God after that? I may be at war with myself.
Since I was brought up in a church of this supposed singular group (not that this is a necessity for criticizing Christianity or its variants), I feel fully empowered to say that most Christians (regardless of whether they are Greek Orthodox or the heretical majority) are not Christians.
I've said it here before: If the teachings of the Christ character as given in the Gospels are not your central guide to action in life, then you are not a Christian. (I am not a Christian.) Doesn't matter if you believe in the literal truth of the Christ story, his god-hood or Resurrection, or if you think you're "born again." Christians are those who take Christ as their teacher, not their "savior." If you love your neighbor as yourself and share what you have with those in need, and the Gospels are your inspiration for that, then you are a Christian, even if you don't believe in the bible sky god. Whereas Pat Robertson is not a Christian, because his is an ideology of hatred. The apocalyptists, fundamentalists, homo-haters and positive-thinking Salesman Christians a la Osteen are not Christians.
Christian is also a historically recent philosophy (in Big History terms, anyway), not a biological trait that's been around since humans first evolved. Christian is as it does; therefore it is not remotely comparable to sex, race, or sexual orientation.Canadian_watcher wrote:But I'm not talking about Christianity. I'm talking about anyone who says they have faith - even if that faith isn't tied to a religion. You cannot tell me that there isn't a prejudice, especially noticeable here on this board but prevalent in the "left" almost everywhere, against people who are spiritual.
That brings us back to oppression. Does the rejection by some of purely faith-based assertions on a message board amount to a prejudice, and if you want to call it that, what's wrong with it?
Besides which, on this message board you engage in evidentiary statements all the time. So your faith must live with other means of apprehending the world.
By the way, given this subject: I assume you do not on the whole believe in the Ickean reptilians, except perhaps as metaphor. Or do you? If so, then do you believe in their existence on faith alone? Or do you believe in the Ickean reptilians on evidence? The latter would be if you felt you had experienced it somehow, or seen clues, rather than believing on pure word.
And a final "by the way": Do you think my writings in this post are indicative of this prejudice against people of faith and spirituality? We might as well have that out in the open amongst us, since neither of us is going to demand that the other be burned at the stake, I am sure.
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Anyway, it's all about how one defines "faith" and "spiritual," and plenty of people who make much of these concepts in their lives are good, good people.
Many better than me, if "you are as you do" is the rule.
So here's a video I ran into today via Counterpunch, of some Catholic Workers fighting the good fight:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGb9pqcz3_Y
wintler2 wrote:Canadian_watcher wrote:..
Yes, I do believe that using the law to force prayer out of school *is* an example of people of a non-theist bent to force their non-theism on others.
Rilly, to be fair, we should have prayers to ALL the gods. But in alphabetic order, or by # of followers? # of wars? If we count just the current wars, then the faux-christians would get to be first.
And it follows that i should be able to 'pray' evolution at Sunday mass, and raise that little issue about infinite god being only masculine. If beer is in my ritual, can i bring a sixpack?
I have the sticker on my bike: Don't pray in my school and I won't think in your church.
JackRiddler wrote:.
I commend you for not reaching for the usual canards of blaming Stalinist Russia or Maoist China on atheism, since of course neither of these states oppressed people because of any remotely rational atheism, but because of a secular religion that was actually a revival of the same God-Emperor cult we see in countless autocracies going all the way back to the Pharoahs. (I suppose the modern Chinese state, which is less ideologically cultish but just as oppressive of its people, including of religious movements, may be closer to an atheistic tyranny.)
Jack Riddler wrote:Not to repeat that exchange we had on the "Facts" thread, but I'd like you to point to an example where people who are not believers in one of the theistic religions are enforcing their beliefs on theists. And I mean enforcing, meaning: imposing by law and force.
V. I. Lenin
Socialism and Religion
Published: Novaya Zhizn, No. 28, December 3, 1905. Signed: N. Lenin. Published according to the text in Novaya Zhizn.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1965, Moscow, Volume 10, pages 83-87.
...
If that is so, why do we not declare in our Programme that we are atheists? Why do we not forbid Christians and other believers in God to join our Party?
The answer to this question will serve to explain the very important difference in the way the question of religion is presented by the bourgeois democrats and the Social-Democrats.
Our Programme is based entirely on the scientific, and moreover the materialist, world-outlook. An explanation of our Programme, therefore, necessarily includes an explanation of the true historical and economic roots of the religious fog. Our propaganda necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism; the publication of the appropriate scientific literature, which the autocratic feudal government has hitherto strictly forbidden and persecuted, must now form one of the fields of our Party work. We shall now probably have to follow the advice Engels once gave to the German Socialists: to translate and widely disseminate the literature of the eighteenth-century French Enlighteners and atheists.
JackRiddler wrote:.Of course, you are also mad,
JackRiddler wrote:.
Today's France imposes measures like the 'burqa ban' in the name of secularism and protection of individual freedom, but these are thinly disguised religious intolerance angling for culturally right-wing voters, or really just plain hating on the unassimilated immigrants (not that I'm for burqas, mind you, just aware that a punitive law is not really meant as a solution any more than the NATO troops are in Afghanistan to advance women's rights).
JackRiddler wrote:.And I wonder what you mean by the French detours? (I mean just what you've written here:) Because there were some Catholic and monarchical revivals or reactions in that country's history, sometimes verging on fascism; I hope you don't view these positively. (No, I don't and honestly I'm insulted that you'd ask that. I have faith not a love of despotism.)
JackRiddler wrote:.
Are you really implying that the removal of Christianist ceremonies ("prayer") from US public schools is an oppression of religionists?
JackRiddler wrote: I can't believe you'd really be for allowing the Christianists to use the country's public schools for brainwashing and to bully the non-conformists there, because of course that is exactly what would happen -- what already does happen, and would become a hundred times worse if it were given legal cover. Madalyn Murray O'Hare was a hero for pursuing that case.
JackRiddler wrote:As a child I was forced to attend a private school that practiced religious indoctrination on us, including interminable teacher-monitored church services on the Tuesdays; and that was still in a relatively liberal culture compared to what would be happening in a great many fundamentalist precincts of this nation. One of the things we learned in our church was that y'all's churches in Texas aren't the real thing. Sorry, there's only one original church, and it's Orthodox, and there is a Western wing of heretics run out of Rome, and all the rest is pure delusion and barely worth even acknowledging. That's the Christianity I learned.
[/quote]JackRiddler wrote:Canadian_watcher wrote:Christianity is certainly tied to a singular group: Christians.
This is not remotely a singular group. This is a catch-all for a number of persuasions, many of which do not consider the others to be Christian.
JackRiddler wrote: Christians are those who take Christ as their teacher, not their "savior." If you love your neighbor as yourself and share what you have with those in need, and the Gospels are your inspiration for that, then you are a Christian, even if you don't believe in the bible sky god.
JackRiddler wrote:Christian is as it does; therefore it is not remotely comparable to sex, race, or sexual orientation.
JackRiddler wrote:Canadian_watcher wrote:But I'm not talking about Christianity. I'm talking about anyone who says they have faith - even if that faith isn't tied to a religion. You cannot tell me that there isn't a prejudice, especially noticeable here on this board but prevalent in the "left" almost everywhere, against people who are spiritual.
That brings us back to oppression. Does the rejection by some of purely faith-based assertions on a message board amount to a prejudice, and if you want to call it that, what's wrong with it?
JackRiddler wrote:Besides which, on this message board you engage in evidentiary statements all the time. So your faith must live with other means of apprehending the world.
JackRiddler wrote: Do you think my writings in this post are indicative of this prejudice against people of faith and spirituality? We might as well have that out in the open amongst us, since neither of us is going to demand that the other be burned at the stake, I am sure.
Canadian_watcher wrote:.. The fact remains that France directly imposes non-theism onto theists.
Canadian_watcher wrote:EDIT: Just saw wintler's post directly above. That sort of thing. I've said I have faith and he's a douchebag about it.
Letter on Salon.com
Thursday, May 20, 2010 11:19 AM ET
Alex Jones is a nutcase
Last September 10th, I exposed a penniless career con man from California after Hardin, Montana's industrial development authority announced a deal to turn over the keys to its prison to the newest scam artist to show up at its door.
Two weeks later, Jones went to the town and claimed that the guy was working for Blackwater, was going to train an army of mercenaries, was part of Obama's "National Police Force," that it was a FEMA concentration camp, that the guy was forcing H1N1 flu vaccinations on residents, etc., etc.
All of those claims were lies. Jones inflated one psthetic scamster's false claims into a multinational conspiracy.
He never took down the ridiculous videos he made alleging the supposed plot.
—Frank Smith, Bluff City, KS Read Frank Smith, Bluff City, KS's other letters
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wintler2 wrote:Canadian_watcher wrote:EDIT: Just saw wintler's post directly above. That sort of thing. I've said I have faith and he's a douchebag about it.
Wrong again. I'm a douchebag (as you put it, why are xtians so nasty?) about your insistance that Alex Jones is a good guy. There is abundant evidence he is a racist homophobic ego-maniac, never mind being wrong again and again, and you apparently just don't care. Your efforts to now paint all this as anti-theism are pathetic enough for AJs show, but until you make it on, they belong on another thread.
Wombaticus Rex wrote:I'm kind of baffled why you guys are bringing up the looting in response to my points. It's true, I was only speaking to the actual locations of bases...since that's the part the US was, you know, actually responsible for.
Did any US soldiers engage in looting? I was under the impression Iraquis did that themselves and they were angry after the fact because the US did nothing whatsoever to secure and protect those landmarks and collections. (Which had no strategic value, esp. compared to, you know, oil.)
Were there MI6 Agents in turbans smashing up the museums? Is my impression wrong?
Canadian_watcher wrote:wintler2 wrote:Canadian_watcher wrote:EDIT: Just saw wintler's post directly above. That sort of thing. I've said I have faith and he's a douchebag about it.
Wrong again. I'm a douchebag (as you put it, why are xtians so nasty?) about your insistance that Alex Jones is a good guy. There is abundant evidence he is a racist homophobic ego-maniac, never mind being wrong again and again, and you apparently just don't care. Your efforts to now paint all this as anti-theism are pathetic enough for AJs show, but until you make it on, they belong on another thread.
here you go sweetness, I didn't realize you were hard of seeing:
I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN
justdrew wrote:despite all the problems with A.J. I do think it's a good thing that he seems to be much more of a discussion driver these days than any of the standard Reich Wing gasbags. One big thing is he makes it easy for his listeners to question the veracity of his information, I dont think nearly the same percentage of his listeners take whatever he says as gospel. ya know, ditto-heads and all that old Flush Limpballs crap.
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