Oh Noes! Muslim Congressman Plans To Swear In On Koran!

The BBQ Pit
261

[QUOTE=The Flying Dutchman]
In fact it is theoretically possible that all these points can be incorporated into the US Constitution through amendment, is that not true?
[/QUOTE]
However, that is wholly irrelevant to Prager’s claim. Note that I did not incorporate any of the biblical language (since amended) that would have prevented women from participating or other similar issues.

If Prager wants to claim that the book must be selected based on the culture from which it is taken and Prager or anyone else wants to prohibit a book that is in (current) conflict with the Constitution, then the points I noted are points that are directly taken from the Bible that specifically contradict the Constitution. We could amend the Constitution to establish a Christian theocracy, but until we do, Prager’s claim is nonsense.

Prager is simply full of hot air: the Qur’an is no more inimical to the Constitution than is the Bible.

[QUOTE=magellan01]
I don’t think so. Many public officials, including Presidents, have sworn an oath with their hand on a bible, yet we have not established a state religion. As we can see from the past 200+ years, one does not neceassirly lead to the other.
[/QUOTE]
Exactly true, because the use or non-use of any instrument as a sign of one’s oath has everything to do with one’s personal belief and nothing whatever to do with the trappings that society places on the ritual.
Prager simply got it wrong on TV and got it seriously more wrong in his written article.

262

[QUOTE=MEBuckner]
Since, what, 70% or 80% of Americans self-identify as some kind of Christian, I think we have more to fear from the imposition of Christian Biblical law by the Rushdoonyites and their Jewish “useful idiots” than we do the imposition of Sharia, especially by the actions of one Congressman who is in fact a Democrat and probably a fucking bleeding-heart liberal. Not, you understand, that I think there’s all that much to fear from the Christian Reconstructionists seizing power anytime soon, just that there’s more risk of that than there is that radical Islamists will.
[/QUOTE]

I’m glad you wrote this, as it shows the chasm in our thinking. One thing I am curious about is what, exactly, do we have to “fear from the imposition of Christian Biblical law”. I can see why many might view it as undesireable, but what is the great fear? And how is that worthy of more fear than the Sharia law of The Koran. Or backing up from that, those who would like to see it installed but will be happy blowing another few thousand of us in the meantime. I guess you must really, really, really hate Christmas music and nativity scenes.

263

I just saw that there was a post on Drudge ( :eek: ) about the Imams. It is from a place called Pajamas Media, which I never heard of. But the article seemed to have some additional info in it, so I though I’d share it.

Here you go.

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[QUOTE=MEBuckner]
one Congressman who is in fact a Democrat and probably a fucking bleeding-heart liberal.
[/QUOTE]
He damn well better be! We sure wouldn’t have elected him otherwise!

265

[QUOTE=magellan01]
I’m glad you wrote this, as it shows the chasm in our thinking. One thing I am curious about is what, exactly, do we have to “fear from the imposition of Christian Biblical law”.
[/QUOTE]
For starters: payment of interest would be illegal, doing business on Sunday (or Saturday depending on what sect you follow) would not be allowed, and divorce is out. Then there is the civil war started over what version of the Bible to adopt, the correct wording of the Lord’s Prayer, the numbering of the 10 commandments, and whether having statues and pictures of Saints amounts to worshiping idols.

266

[QUOTE=magellan01]
I’m glad you wrote this, as it shows the chasm in our thinking. One thing I am curious about is what, exactly, do we have to “fear from the imposition of Christian Biblical law”. I can see why many might view it as undesireable, but what is the great fear? And how is that worthy of more fear than the Sharia law of The Koran.
[/quote]

You mean, “what do we have to fear” as in, how likely is it, or “what do we have to fear” as in what would be the problem with it?

I don’t think we have much to fear from the imposition of Christian theocracy in the sense of it being at all likely, just that it’s more likely than allowing the odd elected official to swear on the Qur’an will lead to the imposition of Islamic theocracy. It’s like the difference between being struck by lightning and being hit by a meteor.

As to the other meaning of “what do we have to fear”, Biblical law would be bad for pretty much the same reasons Sharia is. You know, stoning blasphemers and so forth.

What the fuck does that even MEAN? Has al-Qaida decided the whole “mass murder Americans” thing isn’t working out, and their great master plan is now to get one single Muslim Congressman elected? So next January al-Qaida will use some fiendish device to incinerate the President, Vice President, Cabinet, and the whole rest of the House of Representatives and Senate, then Congressman Ellison will unanimously vote himself Speaker of the House, then take power as POTUS, then proclaim himself Emperor–I mean Caliph, or Emir, or whatever the fuck the title would be–abrogate the Constitution, proclaim Sharia law throughout the land, and order the Air Force to nuke Israel.

I guess you must hate the U.S. Constitution, freedom, motherhood, and apple pie. (Actually, yeah, around this time of year the fucking Christmas music does get pretty grating.)

267

[QUOTE=DanBlather]
For starters: payment of interest would be illegal, doing business on Sunday (or Saturday depending on what sect you follow) would not be allowed, and divorce is out. Then there is the civil war started over what version of the Bible to adopt, the correct wording of the Lord’s Prayer, the numbering of the 10 commandments, and whether having statues and pictures of Saints amounts to worshiping idols.
[/QUOTE]

I’ll take even all this—times 100—over Sharia law. Would you?

268

[QUOTE=MEBuckner]
What the fuck does that even MEAN? Has al-Qaida decided the whole “mass murder Americans” thing isn’t working out, and their great master plan is now to get one single Muslim Congressman elected? So next January al-Qaida will use some fiendish device to incinerate the President, Vice President, Cabinet, and the whole rest of the House of Representatives and Senate, then Congressman Ellison will unanimously vote himself Speaker of the House, then take power as POTUS, then proclaim himself Emperor–I mean Caliph, or Emir, or whatever the fuck the title would be–abrogate the Constitution, proclaim Sharia law throughout the land, and order the Air Force to nuke Israel.
[/QUOTE]

Huh? First you construct an extreme hypothetical and then get confused when I follow it? What I meant by the passage in question is that many of those who would like to install Sharia Law might be perfectly happy blowing a few thousand of us up while waiting for the transition to happen. They might even be ecstatic doing so if they feel it’s not happening quickly enough.

[QUOTE=MEBuckner]
I guess you must hate the U.S. Constitution, freedom, motherhood, and apple pie. (Actually, yeah, around this time of year the fucking Christmas music does get pretty grating.)
[/QUOTE]

No, I’m pretty good with those items. What I hate is political correctness run so amuk as to be potentially suicidal.

269

[QUOTE=magellan01]
I’ll take even all this—times 100—over Sharia law. Would you?
[/QUOTE]

According to members of the Christian Reconstructionist movement Biblical law entails the enforcement of Old Testament law, as they interpret it. The movement was founded by the late R.J. Rushdoony. According to Rushdoony, the penalty for idolatry “in every case is death without mercy”[sup]1[/sup]. In addition to the obvious candidates (Hindus, Wiccans, those Chinese restaurants with little statues of Buddha in them) Rushdoony at various times identified idolaters as including “Arminians”[sup]2[/sup] (that is, any Christian who is not a Calvinist) and also all who “do not strive to replace [a humanistic law system] with Biblical law”[sup]3[/sup]. Rushdoony also stated that “The law thus enjoins us as individuals and as a community to be totally separated from idolatry in any form. Our lives, families, churches, schools, states, and vocations, as well as all things else, must be totally dedicated to God and free of idolatry, from man’s self-worship in any form”[sup]4[/sup], so there’ll be none of this namby-pamby bleeding-heart “independent civil society” crap in a properly Reconstructed state.

[sup]1[/sup]Institutes of Biblical Law, (Nutley, NJ: Craig Press, 1973), pp. 38-39.
[sup]2[/sup]“The Idolatry of Testing God,” Law and Society: Volume II of The Institutes of Biblical Law, (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1982), p. 460.
[sup]3[/sup]“Idolatry and the Law,” Law and Society, pp. 466-469.
[sup]4[/sup]“Idolatry and the Sabbath,” Law and Society, p. 458.

Since the policy you’re advocating will lead directly to the imposition of Christian Reconstructionism–in much the same way letting Congressman Ellison have a photo op in which he swears on the Qur’an to uphold the U.S. Constitution will lead to the U.S. becoming an Islamic dictatorship–I guess we’re all just pretty well fucked then.

270

[QUOTE=magellan01]
What I hate is political correctness run so amuk as to be potentially suicidal.
[/QUOTE]
Yep. All that PC stuff in the Constitution is just going to get us killed.

271

[QUOTE=magellan01]
I’ll take even all this—times 100—over Sharia law. Would you?
[/QUOTE]
Is that my choice? Personally I think the Christian right and the radical Muslims can go someplace and fight each other and leave us normal people alone.

But that being said, fundamentalist Islam is worse than today’s fundamentalist Christians by an order of magnitude. But just because Rosanne Barr is less repulsive than Janet Reno doesn’t mean I want to fuck her.

272

[QUOTE=DanBlather]
But that being said, fundamentalist Islam is worse than today’s fundamentalist Christians by an order of magnitude. But just because Rosanne Barr is less repulsive than Janet Reno doesn’t mean I want to fuck her.
[/QUOTE]

Agreement reached. But boy do I wish I could wash away both of those images from my brain.

273

[QUOTE=DanBlather]
But that being said, fundamentalist Islam is worse than today’s fundamentalist Christians by an order of magnitude.
[/QUOTE]

You know, I’m about to hit the sack, but I just wanted you to know how gratifying it was to see someone on this board state this simple fact so plainly. Seriously. The knee-jerk defense, excusal, or re-direction gets tiresome. And that makes your post particulalry refershing.

Thanks.

274

The problem is that this debate has absolutely fuck-all to do with any actual threat posed by fundamentalist Islam. If this were about something like Saudi-funded madrasas in Western countries or Ontario considering Islamic courts, people like you and Prager might conceivably have some sort of point, besides the ones on your heads. But an elected official taking his oath of office on the Qur’an instead of the Bible has nothing to do with anything resembling an Islamist takeover of the U.S. And anything as massively ill-conceived as making some law requiring that public officials must swear only on the Bible is like wearing a big metal helmet to protect against the meteors whenever you leave this house–it won’t do a damn bit of good, and it might even increase the chances you’ll get struck by lightning.

Of course the real threat–to the United States; if this were Jordan, it would be different–isn’t any kind of Islamic Fifth Column causing the Republic to rot from within; it’s violent terrorism, external attacks rather than anything that actually has any chance of subverting our way of life and winning the support of the American population. To guard against that, instead of this nitwittery we should be talking about things like securing cargo containers at U.S. and foreign ports.

275

[QUOTE=magellan01]
I’m glad you wrote this, as it shows the chasm in our thinking. One thing I am curious about is what, exactly, do we have to “fear from the imposition of Christian Biblical law”. I can see why many might view it as undesireable, but what is the great fear? And how is that worthy of more fear than the Sharia law of The Koran. Or backing up from that, those who would like to see it installed but will be happy blowing another few thousand of us in the meantime. I guess you must really, really, really hate Christmas music and nativity scenes.
[/QUOTE]

Read this carefully.

I am a relatively orthodox Christian, actively practicing my religion.

I believe it contrary to both the ideals on which America was founded and the foundational teachings of Jesus Christ and St. Paul, to mandate by law the practice of various “Christian” behaviors – like mandatory recital of a prescribed school prayer, like mandating that oaths must be taken on the Bible, like using what some people believe are Christian ethics as a basis for regulation of private lives.

I can document my case by quotations from the New Testament in which both men (1) urge a particular code of behavior on their followers, but (2) condemn strongly those who attempt to compel such behavior by law.

The Religious Right is free to call themselves whatever they want – but their arrogating to themselves the exclusive right to the term “Christian” (in a true-Scotsman type test) is contrary to what is truly a foundational document for their and my faith.

And it is not a foundational document for America. Certainly Christian tradition shaped the mindsets of the Founding Fathers. But they were sons of the Enlightenment, whether they themselves were Christians, Deists, or closet atheists. To equate their faiths with that subset of Christianity proclaimed as the only true Scotsman by the Religious Right is bait and switch.

276

[QUOTE=magellan01]
I’ll take even all this—times 100—over Sharia law. Would you?
[/QUOTE]

Some of us believe that the freedom our forefathers purchased with blood is worth fighting for – from external and from internal threats. Like, respectively, Al Qaeda and yourself.

277

[QUOTE=magellan01]
I’ll take even all this—times 100—over Sharia law. Would you?
[/QUOTE]
Your question was "what is there to fear from imposing biblical Christian law. That is an answer. Your comment is irrelevant.
Personally, I’m a woman and I like my career. That’s reason enough for me to fear the imposition of biblical Christian law. I’m forty years old and twice divorced and I make a lot of money. Which of my male relatives ought to be put on the hook for supporting me, once the Christian fundamentalist government decrees I’m not allowed to work? My aged father who just retired? My brother on another continent with the two kids to support and put through college? Or one or both of my exes?

278

Did you know that Mohammad Sarwar, in May 1997, took the Oath of Allegiance as a member of the United Kingdom house of parliament by swearing on the Qur’an? As yet I have seen no great Islamification of the UK, civilisation hasn’t collapsed and government seems to be going on as usual.

And in the 2001 census 390,000 people stated their religion as Jedi Knight, what book should they use?

279

Read “The Hands Maid Tale”
that will give you an idea of what I fear under fundamental Christian rule
It is a story based on the religious right taking over the government

Scary

280

Does someone think slapping your hand on the bible is some kind of legal and binding contract to follow the commandments. If so,it is doing a crappy job. Our prezes have been devious lying bastards for years. and swearing in the has not cured that. When we accept ,and I maintain we do, that our prezes will flat out lie to us ,then what the hell is this debate about.,ceremony. Who cares?