Blast it, I was just successfully defeated by an anecdote. (Which I totally opened myself up for, I might add.)
I may have to fall back on wondering how long a person might successfully remain ignorant of the verse’s actual meaning, before the right-minded person shamefacedly shoves the shirt to the bottom of the trash can?
That’s a more interesting question, and it’s hard to say. I wonder how many right-minded people there are who pass these bumper stickers and T-shirts around, believing it only means getting Obama out of office and not understanding the darker aspects because they live in echo chambers and never meet anyone who has an interest in bringing it to their attention.
Anecdote time again! I used to have a coworker who subjected herself more to right-wing talk than anything else. This was before Glenn Beck, but still when FOX was earning its reputation. I’d overhear her talking about the latest talking points (it was a small office) and I’d make the usual rebuttal that most talking points have. She’d always look surprised, as if she hadn’t considered another point of view. She was a good person and I liked her, but she definitely didn’t get her news from a variety of sources.
Nonsense. The conservatives are the ones who think in terms of gay bashings, assassinations and bombings, suppressing & falsifying evidence, persecution, torture. They are religiously & ideologically fanatic, racist thugs who will quite cheerfully ignore or subvert law and order when it suits them.
They’d cheer, and given the opportunity they’d hide the assassin from the authorities and make songs and prayers idolizing him. Like Eric Rudolph:
Lots of support for law and order there. :rolleyes:
I came up with that idea about what the verse means even without the rest in the Pit before I read this thread. Yet, I was able to come up with what I consider to be the most likely explanation. The people who do this are stupid. They don’t realize the implication. They don’t think like we do.
I think the reason for the rampant paranoia is that people think that others think the same way they do. They think something is bad, so obviously the other person thinks so to, and is perpetuating it because it is evil. Seeing the idiocy of the rabidly anti-Obama crowd, I think stupidity makes a lot more sense.
When I see the rabidly anti-Obama crowd, I suspect that while a few idiot poster children get big press, I actually think that most of them are not as dumb as we liberals like to ad-hominem. (I mean, they tie their shoelaces. Successfully!) I think that they actually have other motivations that they are either masking or bolstering, like hardline republicanism or racism (which are not the same thing). Such people may adopt really stupid argument, but I think that’s not because the people are really that stupid; I think it’s because they have another (perhaps less-presentable) agenda to support and aren’t picky about the quality of their supporting arguments - they’re more interested in their preconcieved conclusions being agreed with.
ETA: So, I do think they realize the implication, or at least the vast vast majority of them do. And that they don’t mind it at all.
That type of analysis would be completely foreign to the ancient Hebrew mind. It should be clear the line “let his days be few,” even by itself, can ONLY refer to the length of life in Hebrew culture. Having one’s “days” (=life) shortened is a curse (Job 10:20, Job 7:6, Psalm 102:23, Psalm 39:5), and having one’s days lengthened is a blessing from God (Prov. 21:6, Prov. 9:11, Ex. 23:26, Deut. 5:6, Deut. 6:2, Deut. 11:21, Job 29:8). Having one’s days be few NEVER refers to time in office, but to one’s life.
Even more sinister is the fact that Psalm 109:8 is the exact verse quoted in Peter’s speech to the believers (Acts 1:20) after Judas’s suicide. Peter quotes the book of Psalms, “Let another take his office,” as justification for choosing a replacement for Judas after his cursed life was cut short.
No doubt. But, this particular usage of the verse is being made by, and for, American minds (if that is not too strong a word).
Quite. Regardless of the original intention, and I do agree that the original intention was wishing for an early death, current-day Americans are simply reading the words without any historical context and likely without any kind of context at all beyond the “Pray For Obama, Psalms 109:8” line.
Well, then, Americans should be taught to read ancient documents on their own terms, in their original contexts, rather than making stuff up.
I’m on the side of this being way, terrifyingly over the line.
All the stuff about the other verses from the same psalm not being important is practically a dictionary example of disingenuous.
Right wingers, you will reap what you sow.
:mad: If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for me!
How do you suggest we solve that problem then?