[QUOTE=Charger]
Undoubtedly, someone would soon found the Church of Nekkid Chicks.
[/QUOTE]
It’s been done. See: Hindu temples, ca. 900 CE, and Wiccan circles, ca. late 1900s CE.
[QUOTE=DanBlather]
I think the way to approach things like this is to call their bluff and go all out to enforce the 10 commandments. Submit referenda to close stores and prohibit football Fri sundown to Sat sundown, lock up the aldulterers, fine people who don’t treat their parents well, tear down the statues of Confederate soldiers, etc.
[/QUOTE]
I’m torn. That would be one way to protest. Another might be to have (non-believing ACLU types) protestors go to the monument and literally worship them. Down on their knees in front of them, bowing to them. Sadly, I think the irony would be lost on these people.
Or maybe it’s just that Dio worries that the Christian fanatics might willingly commit similar atrocities if they could get away with it (e.g., if they were living in the effective anarchy of an out-of-control war zone).
Remember, he didn’t say that putting the 10C’s in the courthouse was in itself as bad as cutting the heads off reporters; he simply said that he found the militant, law-flouting fundamentalism of the Christian zealots as scary as that of the Muslim ones.
[QUOTE=Charger]
Wow. You must not think very highly of reporters.
[/QUOTE]
As a matter of fact, I do. My mother was a journalist and I think it’s an unfairly maligned profession (except for Fox News).
Otherwise – what kimstu said. I find fanatacism scary no matter what the brand is. Retreat into religious zealotry seems to me to be symptomatic of economic desperation and other social pressures. The more downtrodden the group, the more intense their religiosity becomes. I studied this shit in college. The more deprived or disenfranchised a group begins to feel, the more anti-social, isolated and religious it becomes. The religion part isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes it can work to alleviate social crises (Gandhi, Martin Luther King, the abolitionist movement, maybe even the earliest Christian movement in Galilee and Judea), but far too often, it degnerates into an “us and God and against the evil ones” mentality and when the group gets just desperate enough, violence can happen. Islamic terrorism is not caused by Islam, it’s caused by desperate social pressures. Put enough pressure on some of these really out there Christian fundamentalists and violence can happen. Anytime I see a group separating the world into “those of us who are saved and rest of the world which is evil” I get worried.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
As a matter of fact, I do. My mother was a journalist and I think it’s an unfairly maligned profession (except for Fox News).
Otherwise – what kimstu said. I find fanatacism scary no matter what the brand is. Retreat into religious zealotry seems to me to be symptomatic of economic desperation and other social pressures. The more downtrodden the group, the more intense their religiosity becomes. I studied this shit in college. The more deprived or disenfranchised a group begins to feel, the more anti-social, isolated and religious it becomes. The religion part isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes it can work to alleviate social crises (Gandhi, Martin Luther King, the abolitionist movement, maybe even the earliest Christian movement in Galilee and Judea), but far too often, it degnerates into an “us and God and against the evil ones” mentality and when the group gets just desperate enough, violence can happen. Islamic terrorism is not caused by Islam, it’s caused by desperate social pressures. Put enough pressure on some of these really out there Christian fundamentalists and violence can happen. Anytime I see a group separating the world into “those of us who are saved and rest of the world which is evil” I get worried.
[/QUOTE]
I get the same vibe from excess patriotism, like post-9-11. I don’t mean to say that something shouldn’t have been done after that, but the unbridled patriotism after that event was nearly the same as a religion. The group mentality takes over and that is scary.
Thank you for posting that link.
It is nice to get a good look at the folks we are dealing with. To quote Dr. Phil, “Monsters live in the dark.” I enjoy seeing folks putting up these sorts of fights, they do more for our side than they know.
Now if Rev. Phelps would get that…
Strange, wasn’t there a courthouse somewhere that was recently forced to take their 10 Commandments down?
[QUOTE=newcrasher]
Sigh…
As a Christian, I am baffled by these people. I know they are well intentioned and think they are “defending” God’s place in our society.
Alas, if they want to see Christianity advanced, they should spend their energies on liveing the 10 commandments, not constructing silly monuments.
If they want to emulate Jesus, they should have spent the money used on this monument to support “the least of these” as it says in Matthew 25.
I lump these situations in with those folks who feel that they need to “defend” Christmas. These folks identify as Christians, but don’t want to commit to the message of giving and self-sacrafice that Jesus called espoused. So, in order that they can still self-identtify as X-tians, they invest in these silly endeavors. This way they feel they are fighting the good fight and defending the faith, that they are actively living a Christian life. Placing a slab of marble on a courthouse step is a lot easier than doing what Jesus actually asked for.
Meh. How will they feel when Islam is the dominant religion and they can place the Pillars of Islam on the courthouse steps? Crying for separation of church and state I bet.
[/QUOTE]
EXACTLY!
Particularly the part about doing what is a lot easier than merely living what Christ asked for.
Charger:
Intriguing. Do you have any pamphlets I could study?
So, about the really devoted Christians at the center of this – have they run out of poor, hungry people to help? I always had the naive idea that the best way to support your religion was to try and live by its principles every day. (Easy for an atheist to say, of course.)
[QUOTE=Auntbeast]
BTW, the county sign at the dump says “Put Phil Dirt Here” It has been there for years. No, there is no resident named Phil Dirt.
[/QUOTE]
Phil lives in Michigan. :D:D
[QUOTE=Baldwin]
<snip>So, about the really devoted Christians at the center of this – have they run out of poor, hungry people to help? I always had the naive idea that the best way to support your religion was to try and live by its principles every day. (Easy for an atheist to say, of course.)
[/QUOTE]
I think the mistake we’re making is still thinking of people like this as Christians. As a Pantheistic NeoPagan, I’m more a follower of the teachings of Christ than the people who act the ways we’re seeing these days. I don’t know what a better name for their religion would be - Hate-ians? Self-Serving, Self-Righteous Poseurians? I Know Better Than You-ians?
[QUOTE=featherlou]
I think the mistake we’re making is still thinking of people like this as Christians. As a Pantheistic NeoPagan, I’m more a follower of the teachings of Christ than the people who act the ways we’re seeing these days. I don’t know what a better name for their religion would be - Hate-ians? Self-Serving, Self-Righteous Poseurians? I Know Better Than You-ians?
[/QUOTE]
ISTR that the deity whom these people supposedly worship referred to those like them as “scribes and Pharisees.” Works for me.
[QUOTE=featherlou]
I think the mistake we’re making is still thinking of people like this as Christians.
[/QUOTE]
While this seems like an attractive idea, I think Christians still need to “own” these folks (along with Phelps and Paisley) as examples of how our belief can, indeed, be derailed by hatred and ignorance.
I am also not keen on throwing around the term “Pharisee” lightly. Jesus made scathing remarks about the practices of (many) Pharisees exactly because they were the devout people who provided a moral compass to the Jewish people, but among whom there were (too) many who got derailed by hatred and ignorance.
Using “Pharisee” to mean hypocrite in a rather narrow context of a specific message of some of the lessons of Jesus is fine; using it as a generic term for hypocrite denigrates the good that the Pharisees accomplished (including the establishment of an attempt at universal education, the formation of what would eventually become the Talmud, and providing a core of belief to which the Jews could hold, even after the Roman imposed diaspora.
[/soapbox]
Well, okay, Tom, but can we still kick the scribes around?
Sure. They were either lawyers or beanies, anyway.
[QUOTE=Auntbeast]
God damn it, can we pull one fucking county into this century? They did this for no other reason that to prove to the rest of the fucking free world that they are RIGHT and by god, what those freaks out there in other godless counties couldn’t do, they CAN. **This is a prime example of a county that IS run by religion and church. ** My fucking 81 year old grandmother should be able to go to the fucking courthouse without putting up with their fundy bullshit. She has put up with it for 30 years in the fucking county. Give her a break.
Oh, she worked for the friends of the library for decades trying to get that place a decent library. But hey, they got big churches.
[/QUOTE]
(Bolding mine for emphasis)
That’s a scary thought…
Aw, bloody hell. Mr. Preview is my friend and I should play with him more.
Could a passing mod fix the coding so that the sentence “This is a prime example of…” is bolded?
Thanks!
[QUOTE=featherlou]
(Is it just me, or does anyone else keep thinking about Heinlein and how prophetic he was about the way religious things are going?)
[/QUOTE]
That would imply that there weren’t religious nuts around in Heinlein’s time.
[QUOTE=col_10022]
That would imply that there weren’t religious nuts around in Heinlein’s time.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t know about that; Heinlein wrote more than once about a future he apparently saw in which “Christians” went off the deep end and messed things up royally for everyone. I don’t know if that implied they weren’t around in his time or not, just that he foresaw a future in which they were crazier than they were then.
tom, if Christians are going to own these guys, I think they need to leash and muzzle them. They seem to be rabid and prone to attacking without provocation.