The Church of Hate

Conservatives, even if they disagree with Obama, ought to at least respect the office and give him a chance.
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Just like liberals did with George Bush.

None of that matters, what matters is that just by raising concerns about this you have now grossly violated second amendment (the only amendment, don’t know why it is called second) rights of the most peaceful, docile Americans.

Oh, and refrain from the Nazi comparisons.

Amy Sullivan:
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As you are Time’s Christianist-oriented political correspondent, I suppose I shouldn’t be so impressed that you’re up to date on our man of faith Pastor Steven L Anderson.
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In case you intended to do further research, here’s a link to Pastor Steve’s sermon on why the bible tells him to pee standing up, and here’s a link to an episode of his yelling at a woman on a call-in show about Barack Obama being a murderer, and how women are meant to be ruled by men, amongst other noteworthy items.
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Thanks for keeping Time’s readership so well informed about current political events in the Christianist world, Amy Sullivan.

Wow: A hate-filled baptist! Who would’ve ever guessed?!

Ya know, I have never seen a single shred of evidence that Amy is “Time’s Christianist-oriented political correspondent”. But your bile at anything she posts is palpable.
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You tread dangerously close to the same low credibility level as the hulagate/textee/spob algal bloom.

From the website of the Faithful Word Baptist Church:

Pastor Anderson holds no college degree but has well over 100 chapters of the Bible committed to memory, including almost half of the New Testament.

I’m sure we’re all shocked to find this out.

acmeanvil:
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I guess I just couldn’t contain myself when I let all of that bile loose on this recent thread of Amy Sullivan’s.
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Looking back, I can hardly tell the difference between Question Hillary’s rants and my own!.

Used Oldsmobile for sale in Hyannisport, major league mildew problems, includes untouched SCUBA gear and map to Boston’s best whore houses.
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BTW, when does Mary Jo get her plot in Arlington, for heroism at sea?
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Certainly she did more for America than Teddy (or JFK, or RFK, or Nazi Papa Joe) ever did.

Thanks so much for your thoughts; I hope that you can see your way to not begging the Time.com’s IT staff to ban all of my IP’s, acmeanvil (or whoever you are).

Odd that a search for the terms “extremist cleric” and “Time Magazine” only pulls up references to Muslims.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=Ejp&q=%22extremist+cleric%22+and+%22Time+Magazine&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

Is this guy not an “extremist cleric?”

Plus he can send texts directly to God.

And the nutjobs wonder why so many people are getting alarmed by them.

The good pastor should also familiarize himself with Romans 13:1-1.

Let every person be subject to the authorities over him, for there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are ordained by God. So then he who resists the authority opposes God’s ordination, and those who oppose will receive judgement to themselves.

And also 1 Timothy 2:1-2

I exhort therefore, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men; on behalf of kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all godliness and gravity.

acmeanvil: Have you read the bio on Amy Sullivan? It says that she “writes about religion and politics for TIME” and is a graduate of Harvard divinity school. Your rather strange post stands in stark contrast to stuart’s helpful addition to the discussion.

Most liberals I know didn’t really dislike GWB until about Sept. 2002 when the ‘gin up the wrong war’ project began in earnest. History has shown the their lack of regard was well placed and is still something to point to with pride.

What?! Some one using religion to preach hate and violence? Perish the thought.
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Between the Southern Baptists Preachers, and the fundamentalists Muslim Imams /Jewish Rabbis I wasn’t aware that there was any religion that DIDN’T thrive on preaching hate and violence.

A shining example that memorization does not lead to understanding.

The individual(s) who carried an assault weapon in full view in that manner to a Presidential event should have been arrested.
Yes, the gun laws in AZ are not as strict as those in other states and I do support the second amendment– but still in such instances as described above– people should be stopped from appearing to threaten the holder of the highest political office in the land, the President. It was atrocious to see such blatant displays of absolute disregard.

The Police department did not do a good job in this case. They were wrong in the extreme to permit such conduct.

Further, I think the Chief of Police should be held accountable for not knowing when to demand an exception to the general rule. You do not carry guns to Presidential events or such other occasions, period!

http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com/

OK, Peter. I’ll bite. How was Stuart’s comment helpful?

Stuart, please apply your keen intellect to reading some history about Christianity in America. Maybe George Marsden, Mark Knoll, or even Gary Wills might serve to temper your response.

In general, I think the “O how shocking that Christians are hateful” is just a goofy response. Officially atheistic states have such an awesome record on human rights in contrast to those damn Christians don’t they. Where is the belief system that is immune to hatefulness? Just sayin’.

I can’t believe John McCain after giving a lovely speech at Ted’s memorial just blew off Vicky Kennedy on National TV.

That’s an interesting argument from someone who uses lawyer in their name.

Evidently, Amy Sullivan’s been on Mars the last few years. “The Church of Hate” is the church that Barack Obama occupied for 20 years with a hate cult leader named Jeremiah Wright.

pierogielunair:
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Stuart, please apply your keen intellect to reading some history about Christianity in America. Maybe George Marsden, Mark Knoll, or even Gary Wills might serve to temper your response.

How so?
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I mean…temper in what way? What about my comment needs tempering, in your opinion?
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I’m not sure what the problem is, actually. I didn’t think that I had actually criticized Amy Sullivan at all, except perhaps with faint praise. Did you not see the links I embedded to the Reverend who is the subject of her post?
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…And how does the usually excellent idea of reading about Christianity in America (I’m still catching up on Christianity in post-Reformation Switzerland, basically) apply to anything that’s been said here, pierogielunair?

It took this long for a Wright comment? Boy teste you sure are getting slow(er).

SZ- I’m curious about your word “Christianist”. How do you define it as it applies to Amy Sullivan?
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I think Andrew Sullivan uses it to describe people like Dobson but it has been a long time since I have read him so that may be inaccurate.

I know.. I was tempted to add “and the trolls go after Wright in 3..2…1..”after my comment but I figured “Hey, why feed them? They crawl out on their own.”

PNNTO:

I’m curious about your word “Christianist”. How do you define it as it applies to Amy Sullivan?

It applies in great part to her self-described beat.

Trying vainly to lurk more than post, but …
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piero, could you elaborate on this:
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“Officially atheistic states have such an awesome record on human rights in contrast to those damn Christians don’t they. Where is the belief system that is immune to hatefulness?”
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Firstly, SZ, as far as I recall, is a self-described Christian. Anyway, what “atheistic states” are you talking about? The former Eastern Bloc/USSR/China pre-Deng Xiaoping? Would you also include largely secular states (much of W. Europe according to most studies, Japan…), or non-Christian, i.e. Muslim, Buddhist, Hinduist, states?
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Was it their governments’ atheism that led to human rights abuses in those historical nations, or is it merely inherent in any revolutionary period? Plus, weren’t many of the revolutions that made atheism state policy replacing egregiously oppressive regimes (with Christian backing–e.g. the Czar)?
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Not to mention putting the malleable term ‘human rights’ and the US in the same sentence in 2009 makes much of the world retch, or that large majorities of evangelicals think torture is find and dandy, or discounting the path of violence left in the wake of good Christian soldiers over the last two millennia.
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But I surely agree with your closing thought: “Where is the belief system that is immune to hatefulness?”

“Cleric” is generally used to refer to Muslim scholars. It’s like searching for “extreme rabbi” and being surprised to find only Jews.

Stuart, my long-standing impression of your comments on subjects that deal with Christianity and American politics is that they are more a visceral response to “Christianism” in general (I’m still not clear on what that means, but Ferris Bueller taught us all to beware of isms) than the specifics of the particular post. Am I off? So be it. Take it for what it is. I recommended the authors because I think they would help you move beyond visceral response to something that is more nuanced, or perhaps both visceral and nuanced, which can also be a good combination.

Oregon JC:
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Trying vainly to lurk more than post, but …
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Vainly, vainly…
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SZ, as far as I recall, is a self-described Christian.
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For the record, that’s absolutely correct; your memory is quite good.
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Actually, I really try to be very self-aware in terms of my criticism of Amy Sullivan, since I have a bit of a theological problem with her version of Protestantism (like my issues with Neorationalist86′s Catholicism) –probably the reason why I don’t share her label “Evangelical”, although I think that probably might apply to me as well.
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I’ll just stick with “Protestant”. My church is the American branch of Dutch Reform (not quite Calvinists), so it’s a doctrine that sprang out of the Reformation, and is therefore a “real church”.
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I don’t like Amy’s religion –it’s not for me. I don’t believe that it leads terribly well to an intimacy with the beautiful and the good. It’s not necessarily her religion in particular, because I have theological problems with everybody else (and even my own church –imagine that!): the Muslims, the Jews, the Buddhists, the Catholics, the Hindus, the Bahais, the Zoroastrians, the Mormons, the WIccans, the Anglicans, the Orthodox, the Hasidim, the Qutbists…I could go on and on. I see great problems with these doctrines of belief.
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It’s not her religion in particular that bothers me, it’s the particulars of her religion that I find…troubling:

Q: You were raised a Baptist, but you now prefer to call yourself an evangelical Christian?
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A: Yeah. I guess I prefer “evangelical” because I, for years after high school, kind of bought into the spin that I [describe] in the book, that Democrats and Republicans alike have, which is conflating evangelicalism with conservatism. And I thought, “Well, I don’t have politically conservative beliefs, so I must not be an evangelical.”
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But I didn’t turn my back on religion, and it was in the course of 10 years, in exploring more mainline Protestant traditions, that I really got in touch with what made me an evangelical. It has nothing to do with whether I cast a vote for a Republican or whether I think of myself as pro-life.
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It has everything to do with the fact that like most evangelicals, I rely more on the teachings of the Bible than the teachings of a church. It’s very much a personal relationship with God, a personal interpretation of biblical teachings. And — I write this in the conclusion of the book — it wasn’t until I went out to a Christian music concert to cover it, when I was standing in this crowd of 15,000 evangelicals, really holding lights in the darkness, that I looked around and realized, I am one of them. And I need to stop ceding that label to conservatives. Because the only way the stereotypes will go away is if more of us stand up and reclaim that and kind of come out of the closet as evangelicals.

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I actually can’t say that I’m much different. It’s odd how I could write something like “It’s very much a personal relationship with God, a personal interpretation of biblical teachings” and be describing myself –describing Protestantism, actually.
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The problem is something to do with her blithe, almost flippant “It’s very much a personal relationship with God“.
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It’s not. There isn’t really such a thing as a “personal relationship with God”. That’s a facile, stupid, manipulative concession to superstition and peoples’ weaknesses. Jesus did not die on the Cross for you –you, Amy Sullivan– or I, or who we were when we were four years old, or twelve, or thirteen, or twenty, or sixty, or seventy-seven.
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This “personal relationship with God” garbage –like He’s her f*cking therapist– is revolting to me, and represents a gross perversion of what Jesus’ life, death and perpetual value really are. The whole structure of thought that goes into Your Own Personal Jesus belongs where it is: on a shelf of the self-help section of a Barnes & Nobles franchise in your local mall.
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The best I can do with this in the absence of submitting a dissertation about it here is to assert this: the value of Jesus Christ can be summed up in this one beautiful, pure, golden Big Bang of an idea that It’s not the letter of the law, stupid, it’s the spirit –literally– of the law, which is a priori even to the Golden Rule. It’s what makes the Pauline Golden Rule possible.
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Imagine, if you will (because I know that you are capable of it, Oregon JC), the time before there was such a thing as “the spirit of the law”, and there was only the law. I know, it’s hard to even imagine a time when human beings weren’t thoroughly familiar with the thought processes that are formally called “The Scientific Method”, but it exists. That time before Science, before reason –the Dark Ages– was actually pretty advanced.
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The advancement came because of a rediscovery of Platonic idealism mixed with something else. That moral-beautiful-human-objective something else is probably the subject of the previously mentioned dissertation, but I can paraphrase obiliquely somewhat by relating it to Kant’s a priori concepts, e.g. temporality, spatial contiguity, etc. That’s not a very good or thorough job, but the letters I’m typing are showing up in this preview-afflicted text-area more and more slowly…
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I’m hope that Amy Sullivan meant something similar to what I mean, at least in terms of her thoughts being not quite as horribly shallow and dangerous as “My Personal Relationship With My BFF God!“, but we don’t get to hear that from her here, and she’s just started to respond to commentary.
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Those expressions of shallow, contemporary-sounding religiosity are particularly irritating to me as a Christian, because I have to share that name with her, and the fight over what Christianity is (Falwell’s Moral Majority, Amy Sullivan’s self-help miniculture, me?) is ongoing and political in the worst ways. Her kind of Christian calls themselves “Christian”, not “Protestant”. At least the Catholics have the decency to sometimes refer to themselves as a sect –as “Catholics”– these days, and not always “The Church”. It’s about language and politics. Her wholesale adoption of the euphemistic “people of faith” slogan is one example of that offensive, hegemonic chauvinism –it’s so “evangelical”, isn’t it, Oregon JC?
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Amy Sullivan either isn’t capable of seeing Jim Jones writ exurbs-large in her “crowd of 15,000 evangelicals, really holding lights in the darkness“, or she just really doesn’t want to. She doesn’t tend to say much on whether or not the God with whom she’s sharing counseling sessions and bad pop music concerts demands name, rank and serial number in return for such comforting company.
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Anyway, you can see why, given these religious prejudices of mine, I must be especially careful in my criticisms of her, which is why I’ve done my best to confine these to her politics (she’s not really liberal, she’s New Democrat), her journalism (I can’t go into that now) and her blogging (unlinked and unresponsive until recently).
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I’m trying really, really hard not to judge her work through this prejudicial lens, Oregon JC, but truly I fault her in a way that I never, ever would Joe Klein because of his Judaism, even though I disagree theologically with that, too.
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Am I doing a decent enough job?

jcapan, that paragraph was not directed at Stuart but a theme in the thread. That’s why I started with, “in general.” If that wasn’t clear, apologies, Stuart. When I said officially atheistic states I had in mind Soviet Russia and Maoist China. Mind you I understand that religious organizations were allowed to exist in those states but only under heavy control and repression.

Was it their governments’ atheism that led to human rights abuses in those historical nations, or is it merely inherent in any revolutionary period?

I think the human rights abuses in both those cases came because of those governments’ goal to crush dissent in any form. But the absence of religious influence certainly didn’t help them to have a better record on human rights than say, Europe during the inquisition, to think of a really bleak chapter in Christendom.

I’m not convinced that human rights abuses are inherent to revolution. The American Revolution actually did pretty well in human rights. The worst human rights abuses, slavery and genocide against native peoples, were present both before and after the American revolution.

Plus, weren’t many of the revolutions that made atheism state policy replacing egregiously oppressive regimes (with Christian backing–e.g. the Czar)?

Definitely.

Not to mention putting the malleable term ‘human rights’ and the US in the same sentence in 2009 makes much of the world retch,

I definitely didn’t put those two phrases together and and you may be right about the global retching, but don’t there are many people in the world who are angry at the U.S. because of our failure to live up to our ideals? It doesn’t cease to amaze me that many Iranians have very positive feelings toward the U.S. despite the fact the we played Iraq off against them through most of the 80s and supported the Shah before that.

or that large majorities of evangelicals think torture is find and dandy, or discounting the path of violence left in the wake of good Christian soldiers over the last two millennia.

Evangelicals of fundamentalists? They aren’t the same in the U.S. historically. Personally, I’m all to well aware of the path of violence left in the wake of good Christian soldiers. I’m also glad that there is a peace tradition in Christianity, which, though not without its own shortcomings, has brought much effective critique.

OK. that was a long response, but there you have it.

Stuart, thanks for that wonderfully honest response to Oregon jcapan. This really helps me understand how to read your comments and also to feel a certain kinship. I have a special affinity for Dutch Calvinism because, despite its many blind spots, exposure to it gave me a path out of the dispensationalism that I was raised in. I too, have had to stop calling myself evangelical because of the politics pervasive in evangelicalism but I cling to my faith and find meaning in it nonetheless. The Bible is many things, but it is not propaganda, and I take comfort in that.

pierogielunair:
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Thanks so much for reading, and for the thoughtful response.

My pleasure to be sure , Stuart. G’night.

@peter: Nope, not the case, the word has nothing at all to do with Muslims specifically and is of Greek origin.

See dictionary.com:

cler⋅ic
  /ˈklɛrɪk/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [kler-ik] Show IPA
Use cleric in a Sentence
See web results for cleric
See images of cleric
–noun
1. a member of the clergy.
2. a member of a clerical party.
3. clerics, (used with a plural verb) half-sized or small-sized reading glasses worn on the nose, usually rimless or with a thin metal frame.
–adjective
4. pertaining to the clergy; clerical.
Origin:
1615–25; < LL clēricus priest < Gk klērikós, equiv. to klêr(os) lot, allotment + -ikos -ic

pierogielunair:
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Just one tiny argument with:

the absence of religious influence certainly didn’t help them to have a better record on human rights

, which is that the “absence” is both not literally true (witness the amount of ongoing effort undertaken to remove religious influence from totalitarian culture), and is irrelevant.
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The absence of imperial Chinese pagodas in Chicago during the Great Chicago Fire didn’t help firefighters contain the blaze, either. The absence of water was what really hurt firefighting efforts.

SZ
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Given that you mentioned me specifically, I feel obliged to respond in some capacity. While I have no qualms with your theological objections to Catholicism, as certainly theology is entirely open to interpretation even within the Catholic Church, I do wish to make a few points. Chiefly, an underlying difference between Catholic Christianity and Protestantism is the vast temporal divide. While Protestantism arose over a millennium after Christ, Catholicism dates to the period of the Christian prophet, Jesus. Naturally, as with Islam and Judaism, the sects that originate directly from the prophets will always resist sectarian schisms hundreds of years later. The Catholic tradition, the celebration of Mass, is simply Missa (Latin) and earlier Eucharista (Greek) celebrating the life of Christ. The Catholic Church was truly the “universal” Christian religion until the emergence of Luther and subsequent Protestant movements. Hence, “The Church,” in which you take offense. But I ask, Stuart, given your own recognition of the inherent self-righteousness of all the religious in this statement:
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I have theological problems with everybody else (and even my own church –imagine that!): the Muslims, the Jews, the Buddhists, the Catholics, the Hindus, the Bahais, the Zoroastrians, the Mormons, the WIccans, the Anglicans, the Orthodox, the Hasidim, the Qutbists…I could go on and on. I see great problems with these doctrines of belief.
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You must recognize that all of these have problems with your doctrines of belief, as well? We all see our version as the better system, else why would we adhere to our faith over others? So, given the historical reason behind using the term The Church, as in 2000 years of universal Christian continuity, there is also the unavoidable view among Catholics that we have it right, everyone else is wrong. Just as you feel about Dutch Calvinism.

Neorationalist86:
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I cannot disagree with anything you said here.
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Thank so much for your response.

…Err…except for this bit which might require a clarification:

The Catholic Church was truly the “universal” Christian religion until the emergence of Luther and subsequent Protestant movements. Hence, “The Church,”

…You do mean to say that the Eastern Orthodox Church was the “One, Holy, Catholic [from the Greek καθολική, or universal] and Apostolic Church” –not the Roman Catholic Church– right, neorationalist86?

SZ
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Not a problem.
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I must say, I found your lengthy analysis on particular aspects of various Christian interpretations to be intriguing and thought provoking. I largely agree with your disdain for Christianity of the self-help variety and the ambiguity of personalized relationship faith. Thanks for sharing. Cheers.

I am afraid not, SZ. The Catholic Church, which endured a schism in 1054 between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, is inclusive of both eastern and western Catholicism. The Holy See recognizes the Eastern Church as within the fold of the Church. Roman Catholicism is also, at times, used liberally to include Eastern Orthodoxy, while more often than not simply the Catholic Church applies to both. The theological divides between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy are negligible. The main areas of contention are in traditional customs, which the Church has recognized as something that will not impede unity. Essentially, they are both part of the same continuity of the Church and may well again become truly One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

I am afraid not, SZ. The Catholic Church, which endured a schism in 1054 between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, is inclusive of both eastern and western Catholicism. The Holy See recognizes the Eastern Church as within the fold of the Church. Roman Catholicism is also, at times, used liberally to include Eastern Orthodoxy, while more often than not simply the Catholic Church applies to both. The theological divides between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy are negligible. The main areas of contention are in traditional customs, which the Church has recognized as something that will not impede unity. Essentially, they are both part of the same continuity of the Church and may well again become truly One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Exiled_At_Home…

Not quite. Rome is both schismatic and in heresy from the Orthodox church, and the Bishop of Rome has grossly elevated his status to claim a primacy for which there is neither theological nor historical precedent. The theological divisions, which are considerable, arise from unilateral (and so schismatic) additions by Rome to the Nicene Creed inter alia. As such, Rome needs to repent, acknowledge its errors, and recognize that the Bishop of Rome is only one of the traditional pentarchy of patriarchs, the others being Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople and Jerusalem. Unfortunately, Rome persists in its arrogance and errors, and as such has not yet been readmitted to the Orthodox fold. The situation has been exacerbated by the extremism and folly of Joseph Ratzinger, who continues perversely to claim infallibility (another heretical Roman deviation from Orthodoxy) and as such fails to humble himself to his true status.

Unfortunately, Rome persists in its arrogance and errors, and as such has not yet been readmitted to the Orthodox fold.
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Should I hold my breath?

Dear Pastor Steven Anderson:
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Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
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Check and mate.

Grollican
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You make it entirely too easy to debunk your claims. One point nullifies your entire claim.
…the Bishop of Rome has grossly elevated his status to claim a primacy for which there is neither theological nor historical precedent.
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Matthew 16:18: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.” Peter, Rome’s first Bishop, was to be the foundation of the Church. Thus, the successor to Peter will always lead the Church, hence the supremacy of Rome. Historical and theological, my friend. The rest of your commentary is superfluous inaccuracy.
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The situation has been exacerbated by the extremism and folly of Joseph Ratzinger, who continues perversely to claim infallibility…
On a side-note clarification, in no time has Catholic doctrine claimed the infallibility of any Pope. It is the Church, as led by the Pope, that is infallible. This is to say that the Pope, who is a mere mortal, is certainly capable of erring, however what he enunciates in his capacity as Pope with regard to Catholicism must be adhered to as infallible doctrine. Furthermore, far from exacerbating, Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, has declared his ardent intentions to seek unity with the Eastern Orthodox Church, as the Church has previously done with other Eastern Catholic Churches, in spite of the East’s schism from the rightful Holy See of Rome.

Thanks for the long ‘response’ Stuart. Clearly I served as a proxy of sorts for piero, given that he was questioning you, I was questioning him, and you, logically enough, responded to me. Perhaps at the same time, you wanted it to be clear to others (not merely hostile-to-organized-religion agnostics like myself) that you and Amy Sullivan are different kinds of Christians. I’m sure it’ll come as no surprise to you that you were never in any danger on that count. Religion can be a fascinating topic (philosophically for me), but her work here at Time is hardly firing the collective synapses. Anyway, it was an interesting read nonetheless.
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And piero, thanks for the clarification—some synergy has been achieved here amidst the cross-purpose chaos of a thread.

Humans are the only creatures on the planet that will follow unstable leadership and most of that is accomplished through religion. It astounds me that otherwise intelligent, well meaning people can be turned into foolish, hateful people because some d-bag pretends that’s he’s gods mouthpiece.
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Religion is just silly, until it gets evil.

The problem is that people don’t always use words according to their dictionary definition. You may technically be correct in calling this guy a cleric, but that doesn’t mean he will be referred to as such.

Thank you, sir and very well said!
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It was Katrina that did it for me…

Can anybody name another fundamental religious organization that preaches hate and violence? I know of one that hasn’t been mentioned here.
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jeopardy.wav
jeopardy.wav
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jeopardy.wav

Now, the next step in drawing the line from point A to point B here is to ask yourself:
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What is the difference between a radical imam and Steven Anderson?

Now, for step three:
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With the line clearly drawn from point A to point B, and having done so with a minimum of writing and invective, I challenge all of you who would put these comments on ‘relentlessly ignore’, to point out, for everyone to see, just what the differences are.
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One caveat:
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The type of religion doesn’t matter!

Stuart, you’re right of course that it’s generally of no use to try to build an argument on the absence of a thing or from silence on a subject. I was, in a very short-hand way, trying to address a subtext that always seems to be there in this kind of thread, that if we just got rid of all the religion things would be much simpler. Call it Lennonism maybe. I should have just said that humans have demonstrated capacity for incredible violence without religion as the primary motivator (and I’ll gladly acknowledge jcapan’s point that many revolutions are indeed a reaction to repressive religion, so that’s why I’m saying primary motivation).
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jcapan, definitely agree about achieving some synergy in the conversation. Thanks for de-lurking and being the catalyst for an excellent discussion.
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I should also reintroduce myself, since we both changed our monikers from previous versions of the blog. I didn’t recognize you as Oregon JC and I no longer go by superterricdelegate, but my new user name is still too long for the frakking template so the final silent e always gets dropped off of pierogielunaire.

Cheers!

Spelling? Geographic location? Dress code? Access to air conditioning? Cable channels?
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It’s got to be something minor. Trick question.

But all real conservatives know that all christians are inherently good and all muslims are inherently bad. How can you godless evil liberals even attempt to ignore the type of religion?!?!

Because that’s what we do. It’s our job. Now send me a large check made out to “Our Lady of the I Can’t believe You Fell For It Church”.

[...] Amy Sullivan is not wrong to call this a “Church of Hate.”  A pretty damning recording from a sermon given in Phoenix [...]

Considering all the evil, oppression and murder that has been wrought in the name of religion, it would be better if we all went back to worshipping the forces of nature, the trees in the forests and the flowers in the fields. These at least don’t incite hatred and violence against others and might inspire us to care for our environment and our fellow species that inhabit this planet.

There should be no role for myths, superstitions, or religion to manipulate or have any role in our public policy. Love and inspiration, not hate and domination should be a the center of the debate.

What century is this, the 15th?

Towandavt
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Honestly, where do you get your history lessons? In addition to Greek, Roman and Germanic ideals, it was religion, namely Catholicism that forged Western civilization and modernity. Love and inspiration you say, you’ll need not search far in religion to find these. Innovation and reason, compassion and humility, science and faith. Religion is the bearer of these gifts. The initial retrogression of the Dark Ages came not from religion, but from the twin happenings of the fall of Rome and the rise of barbarism. The Church strove to retain the classical knowledge of the Empire, however faltered for some time, before regaining the its role as protector of reason and knowledge.
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Let me get a bit more specific, so as to not appear to be proposing mere opinion. The overwhelming scholarship on the history of the Middle Ages has not only vindicated the Catholic Church for much of what it has been criticized for, but has all thoroughly debunked the assertions that this was a period of ignorance and retrogression lasting only until the undermining of the Church by way of the Reformation. In truth, the Catholic Church gave us the university system during this Age, whereby rational debate and scholarly exchange was encouraged. The result: the Scientific Revolution indebted to the Church (see: A.C. Crombie, David Linberg, Edward Grant, Stanley Jaki, Thomas Goldstein, J. L. Heilbron). The pursuit of scientific advance was rigorously pursued by the Church, evident though Father Nicholas Sterno (father of geology), Father Athanasius Kircher (father of Egyptology), Father Giambattista Riccioli (rate of acceleration), Father Roger Boscovich (father of modern atomic energy), the Jesuits (seismology referred to as the Jesuit science). In addition, according to J.L. Heilbron of Berkley, “the Roman Catholic Church gave more financial aid an social support to the study of astronomy for over six centuries…during the Middle Ages into the Enlightenment, than any other, and, probably, all other, institutions.” Let us also not disregard the scholarly developments of monasticism. Monks saved written language after the fall of the Roman Empire and led the transition into European civilization.
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Moving into another realm, international law was originally debated in Catholic Spanish universities, prior to the theorists of the 17th and 18th centuries. Father Francisco de Viroria has earned the title of ‘father of international law.’ Western law and the notion of ‘rights,’ such as human rights or property rights, is a product of Catholic canon law. Catholic legal tradition was the first to introduced evidentiary procedures and rational thought. 20th Century economists Joseph Schumpter has argued that the Catholic thinkers of the Late Scholastics are the founders of modern scientific economics.
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Where, might I ask, does Social Justice Theory originate? Charity and liberality towards the poor? Prior to the Church’s emphasis on charity solely as charity, there existed a very different system of charity for recognition. According to W. E. H. Lecky ( a strong critic of the Church) the Church’s role with regard to the poor was a radically new social phenomenon that greatly improved standards of living in the western world.
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I could continue like this for quite some time with regard to universities, academic life, language, debate, reason, science and humanity, however it is unnecessarily superfluous.

“Considering all the evil, oppression and murder that has been wrought in the name of religion, it would be better if we all went back to worshipping the forces of nature, the trees in the forests and the flowers in the fields.”

On the lighter side of this, I definitely worship gravity. You simply do not mess with gravity, even if it is so incredibly weak.

I think here that the whole point is missed. Like virtually everything else, what is left of the GOP has usurped religion just like it has with racial hatred in pursuit of it’s own very narrow goals.

I’m not going to blame the religion for this one, any more than Islam is to blame for Al-Queda – and – as you can see from my very short and to the point commentary above, there is currently little distance between the two.

There is not only a phrase with it’s connection to Timothy McVeigh as a precedent for my points, there is also a shrine that embodies my point:

The Alfred P. Murrah building…

Exiled_at_home: I feel compelled to point out that:

1) The idea of Peter at the first bishop is uniquely held by Catholicism, and does not seem to be well supported by scripture (in particular, it’s noteworthy that Paul was clearly taking the lead during much of the early church years);

2) Although the English sentence structure makes it less than obvious, the “upon this rock” in Matthew 16:18 refers not to Peter but to Christ himself. In other words the Church, as the bride of Christ in Revelation 21:10 is not founded upon the mortal, fallible Apostle Peter but upon Christ himself.

I suspect that you’ll disagree with me on both these points.

Peter
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You are correct in that English translations are awkward. However, the Greek translation is equally so. We must return to Aramaic. According to John 1:42, in everyday life Jesus referred to Peter as Kepha. Jesus spoke Aramaic; kepha is “rock” in Aramaic. Thus, what Jesus actually said to Peter in Aramaic was: “You are Kepha (Peter) and on this very kepha (rock) I will build my Church.”