The short version: not just somebody who believes the absolute and literal truth of their scripture of choice, but — and these qualifiers are key — they (1) believe it to the exclusion of common sense and (2) want to force everybody else to live by their rules. That encompasses not just the Bible-thumping loons like the Alabama judge (or at least the yahoos to whom the poltroon is pandering) but also the imams in Pakistan who maintain those “schools” where the male students do nothing but sit and rock and recite the Quran all day long, and everybody else of their ilk. Like most of us here (I wouldn’t presume to speak for everybody), I got no problem with intelligent, live-and-let-live religious people. It’s the wacko evangelicals with the blinkered worldviews who drive me nuts.
That’s the short version. If you want more, a GD thread to the effect of, “what exactly makes a fundie a fundie,” would probably be fruitful, unless it’s already been done and I just missed it.
And back to this thread: It’s irrelevant, really, whether or not she actually believes these idiotic things herself; Dr. Laura is making a deliberate effort to appeal to this demographic. It’s a sick misrepresentation of the heart of Christianity, in my opinion: Nowhere, to my knowledge, does Jesus say, “You must love everybody, unless you disagree with them, which gives you carte blanche to cackle at their misfortunes while one of my hairsprayed minions abuses them on talk radio.”
FWIW, Dr Laura has a response at her website (it’s an audio file…you need either the Windows Media Player or Real Audio PLayer).
Essentially, she denies making a broadbrush slam against Muslims (or Arabs) in general. She seems to say that she was focusing on the “evil doers” behind 9/11 etc…
I didn’t listen to the whole 11 minute response though.
To Orthodox Judaism, no less. She claimed it fit her personal moral outlook best. I understand that in the practice of Orthodox Judaism, she was less than full kosher…
Thank you Cervasie. I needed cheering up and that might just be the funniest thing I’ve read all day.
I think I’m about to be booted off of a conservative message board for disapproving of the Iraq invasion. Somebody made the quantum leap from me disapproving of the Iraq war to me approving of 9/11 without even asking me a question. I got exceptionally upset. Thinks are now heading south faster than Paris Hilton’s underwear.
To be entirely clear, after a disagreement with her rabbi(s) on some issue that she found of great moral significance (perhaps Iraq, perhaps the California gubernatorial) Laura Schlessinger is not only not attending an Orthodox shul, she is not even keeping the Jewish sabbath. She has been seen and does now admit freely on her show that she is even engaging in her newest hobby – yacht racing – on weekends, including daylight hours of Saturdays.
I will tolerate a high degree of right-wing extremism on the radio. Ever since Rush got back, I’ve been listening in. Can you blame me? I actually like Boortz on many occasions. He’s a libertarian type. I’ll even listen to Hannity, to see if I can say what he’s going to say before he says it. Obviously, my car AM dial works and I own a radio.
Michael Savage: instant channel change. Dr. Laura: instant channel change. For your health and sanity. Live long, and prosper. I also keep at least 30 CDs in my car at all times.
One more thing, this kind of blame-the-whole-religion crap when obviously quite a few Muslims look almost as scared as we do – seen Turkey or Saudi lately? – is counterproductive in the extreme. I want the al Qaeda branch of “Islam” knocked out. That’s obviously only one ‘tiny’ (debatable, but she’s fucking crazy) part of Islam. Islam is very large, so even a “tiny” number is far from insignificant however I spin this. Bummer.
OTOH, teaching kids about tolerance and making distinctions between a religion and religious fanatics – without downplaying the religious angle – is important. Not easy, important.
Exactly. I actually think a comparative religion class would be a good thing in high schools-- not a class which endorses any particular religion over another but a class which simply gives a general background for major world religions. This is what Muslims believe, this what Christians believe. Judaism, Buddhism, etc. Some field trips to visit some mosques, synagogues, churches, ashrams etc, could help give kids an idea what other forms of worship are like and what the people who practice them are like. A class like that would help to put the lie to attitudes like Dr. Laura’s and show kids that Muslims are not wild-eyed, bomb throwing fanatics but just human beings like everybody else. A lot of people-- and not just Christians-- are so insulated within their own particular faith that they have some very false ideas about other religions. Religion is an extremely significant factor in this world, historically, politically and socially. It only seems rational to make it a part of secondary education as long as it is approached fairly and objectively.
It’s good that Dr. L goes off, retracts, eats crow, and is still criticized. That’s freedom: the good, bad, and yet ugly typing frenzy that it is. I hope she’s not fired. Let’s face it, someone needed to throw that view out there.
In the spirit of continued cooperation, I agree – no, not with Dr. Laura. It’s important to weed out the “bomb throwers” generally. Rhetorical bombs aside, let’s face it, if Islam was aflame with anger the way she paints it the whole ‘Western World’ (certainly the USA) would be having a civil war instead of arguing about radio show hosts. Terrorist acts have not led to the great confrontation that Usama wants, precisely because most Muslims don’t think uniting under his violent banner makes much sense.
The reality is that every day Muslims, Christians, and Jews do coexist for the most part. It seems impossible to believe given the natural media emphasis on conflict, but somehow it must be true.
I know this is a hijack but I object to the inclusion of Michael Moore into the above group. As far as I know he’s never publicly discriminated against anyone based on race or creed or sexuality. Do you have any basis for including him with the other bigots?
Guin
I get your point but I think that if she’d been a Nazi she would have been a Nazi of the most obsequious type. It’s people like her that make genocides happen.
OK, I don’t post very often but I felt I had to contribute to this thread in defense of Dr. Laura… :eek:
First a little about me and my politics (so I don’t get flamed too badly for this defense): I’m a staunch member of the left. I’m an atheist with zero doubts about my faith. I vote for democrats almost always as a matter of principle. I support gay marriage 100%. I was against the war. And finally I generally think that everyone on am radio is an idiot… That said, I heard the aforementioned broadcast and it is not quite as bad as portrayed in the article.
I listen to quite a few people on am radio as NPR tends to repeat itself after a couple of hours. IMO, Dr. Laura is actually on target about 90% of the time. I usually find myself agreeing with her advice regarding relationships, parenting, etc, though she is always a complete bitch to her callers and berates them unnecessarily instead of just helping them (kind’ve amusing really). The 10% of the time she is wrong is the stuff that gets widely circulated by the mainstream press. Her painting liberals with her wide brush and thinking they are the causing the downfall of the world is just insane and drives me nuts. Her bitching about the left controlled media is laughable and delusional. Some of the comments she’s made about homosexuality should be prosecuted as hate speech. So please don’t flame me because of this post. I’m not a fan of DL, but I find the article and comments about the article to be misrepresentative (is this a word?).
On to Dr. Laura’s comments: A woman called in and explained that her daughter was going on a field trip to a mosque and would be required to cover her head in the mosque. The teacher of said class was trying to get the class to appreciate Muslim culture and understand that Americans treat Arabs and Muslims pretty badly. The woman didn’t want her daughter to cover her head in the mosque and was calling to get Dr. Laura’s opinion on this requirement.
(Please note; I was only half listening at this point.)
The whole call set Dr. Laura off. She seemed to be upset for two reasons:
The teacher trying to teach the students that Americans do bad things to Muslims, yet “no Americans have crashed planes into Muslim buildings, no Americans have set off bombs in public places killing innocent people, etc…” (I guess she doesn’t count all the bombs our planes have dropped over the past 10 or so years :rolleyes: ). She basically thought the teacher was part of the liberal left that “blames America for everything and hates America”, and is causing the downfall of morality in the world. So the fact that this woman was calling about her daughter being required to cover her head in a mosque while being unconcerned that her daughter was being taught “this garbage” pissed her off to no end.
The second thing that pissed her off was that this woman was thinking that her daughter did not have to cover her head when entering a mosque. Dr. Laura’s take was that you always show respect when entering any house of religion no matter what the religion, and if this means covering your head then cover your head. She was pretty indignant that this woman thought it was OK not to show basic respect to Islam just because it was not her religion. (Her comments on this were pretty minor however, only two or three sentences. She spent most of the time bitching about the stuff in point 1.)
That was about it in a nutshell… I don’t think that Dr. Laura said or even really implied that all Arabs or Muslims are bomb throwing hateful killers, blah, blah, blah. What she did say is that the liberal left are traitors for teaching our children to hate America. Not much better, I’ll grant you, but at least it’s not xenophobic.
One final note: The words in quotes above are not actual quotes. I am trying to portray the gist of the tirade and not trying to reproduce it in full. If I misunderstood what was said, or just didn’t pay too close attention (more likely the case – in fact I think my cell phone rang somewhere during the call and I was driving at the time) then tough shit, I’m trying to pass on what I heard.
Dr. Lara Shitslinger is Jewish? Well, I guess every group will attract a number of complete and utter loons. She’s still a ham, and her cloven hooves still serve as a warning to all who come near.
Actually, she no longer considers herself Jewish. Apparently Orthodox Jews weren’t mean enough to the people they disapproved of morally for her.
I think it says something about a person when they choose religious affiliations based on whether they’re allowed to berate people who don’t live up to their standards…
By the reports of even those critical of her perspective, Schlessinger’s problem with her affiliation with Orthodox Judaism was due to a perceived lack of a fulfilling connection to G-d from fulfilling the laws and following the rituals of observant Jewish life. She says that she expected something similar (oddly enough) to the kinds of reports that she heard from friends and fans about their experiences as Christians, and didn’t find it.
There’s more than enough to disagree with Schlessinger about without misrepresenting her positions on such highly personal topics and behavior.