Which is the way it should be in a polite society. Religion and politics have always been the quickest route south of polite conversation.
well it’s hard to get excited over evil environmental stuff. It went from a noble effort to clean up rivers and air to an often monumental quagmire of paperwork. It’s hard to find a fuzzy animal for that. But we love you anyway. If you could get my city to recycle more than 2 plastic types that would be swell.
I’m not sure how much credence to place on polls. They show that 40% of Americans believe in UFO’s carrying extra-terrestrials and 65% believe in the literal truth of the Bible. This means at least 5% of Americans believe in both UFO’s and the literal Bible, if my arithmetic is correct.
I hope a Doper can help track down one of the 15 million Americans who believe in both UFO’s and the special Creation in Genesis; I have some questions. Are the flying saucers populated by the descendants of Cain? Did those saucers rain manna on the Hebrew children and if so, what’s their present agenda? Are the saucers’ passengers angels of God who are too lazy to use their wings, or are they working for the Other Guy?
How is that comparable?
Terr, I forgot you were all about the gotcha. My point still stands about the Ant-Christ polls. It’s sad that there is a significant number of people who believe there is an Anti-Christ at all.
Yes, precisely! Exactly the same.
Well, except that the AWOL thing says that several decades ago, Bush didn’t show up for duty when he was supposed to and then received an early discharge (which was true) while the birther thing says that Obama is a foreign usurper who isn’t legitimately entitled to be President (which is bullshit). But aside from those hair-splitting differences, your comparison is dead-on.
This site is all about fighting ignorance, right? Well, BrainGlutton’s ignorance was fought.
I’ll agree with that. I myself haven’t been keeping up with the polls on crackpot theories, so it was nice of you to provide the update. Thanks.
I never really thought about it that way; I’d always assumed that blatant racism was a sort of hate, even if it wasn’t overtly violent.
Probably isn’t, at least not yet. Depends on the precisely correct numerological interpretation of certain key passages; a vexing question, to be sure.
To grossly oversimplify, John of Patmos was presenting a view of Christianity as a rejection of the secular world, especially as it was represented by Rome. Others offered the view that a Christian could live and function in the corrupt world, and even though tainted by sin, could be forgiven.
But many, like the author or Revelations, took the view that a true Christian should emphatically reject the secular world, in part because that secular world was doomed and would be soon overturned, and only those very, very few who remained strict in their observance could be forgiven and saved.
For the most part and over all, those who advocated for accommodating the Roman world won the theological argument with the judicious application of arguments like money and power. Whether or not the question has been truly resolved or even can be truly resolved depends on who you ask. Which is fine as long as it isn’t me.
I never said it was exactly the same. I said it was comparable especially. Biased partisans will usually grasp at anything to discredit a president from “the other side.” Like the Killian documents. That’s what I had in mind when comparing the two.
But fine, a better example. Obama is a Kenyan born secret Muslim, and Clinton was a rapist, had Vince Foster murdered, and helped run a drug running operation. Both assets of accusations show that Obama isn’t the first to receive this kind of crazy conspiracy theory talk.
I have no idea. That excuse never gets tired, though, does it?
The difference is that you guys keep electing those nutbars.
Let’s take this Bush-hate v. Obama-hate contest to this thread.
You guys? I don’t consider myself a conservative or a Republican. I will agree though that it seems that Republicans are more vocal and more willing to grasp at any theory and willing to make crazier accusations than Democrats, and I’m referring to actual elected officials. I think that’s crazy how many Republican elected officials doubt Obama being born in the US.
But it goes against that this is all new with Obama or that hatred has just now become “fun for the family” considering what’s marketed towards kids and families as entertainment.
That said, I do completely agree that the rodeo clown/Obama mask was inappropriate for that venue. It’s a rodeo not a place to voice immature political slander or opinions on behalf of the event.
Surely it’s nothing new and not racist. We’ve seen it before with Bush, Blair, Thatcher, etc. It’s standard political partisanship.
Right, this. You can’t just caricature nonwhites in this country the same way you can whites.
I was curious when my post seemed to inspire you to start witnessing all of a sudden, so I checked out this handy numerology-based Antichrist calculator. It turns out both Bush and Obama are in the clear, but I AM an Antichrist :eek:
Holy shit! All I gots to say is that you must not live in the south.
I don’t know if such a thing exists, but it would nice to find a message board where all participants use best data, rather than incomplete data that serves their purpose.
Terr cites a poll conducted in 2009 when Obama had been President for 8 months, and Bush had just completed a double term leading America to both the worst geopolitical disaster and almost the worst economic disaster ever. The very same polling organization repeated the question in 2013 – I won’t bother to cut-paste a URL because it was discussed at length in a recent SDMB thread and is easy to find with Google anyway – now shows Obama Anti-Christ as 13% with 13% unsure.
Now, the difference between 10 to 8 and 13 to 8 might not be a big deal, but I’m sick and tired of wingnuts hand-picking and doctoring statistics. I will start calling them out.
I strongly agree with all of these comments. The reason Cheney-inspired 911 is impossible is that he would realize the likelihood that such a secret would come out. I do find it likely that in his secret heart, 11 September 2001 was the happiest day of Cheney’s life.
Christians have in principle been hostile to superstition; St. Augustine wrote refutations of astrology. How is numerology any different, I wonder?
Since the margin of error on the poll is 4%, the results from 2009 and 2013 are within it. And since 2013 poll didn’t ask the question for Bush, there is no comparison.
It’s not between 10 to 8 and 13 to 8. It is between 10 to 8 and 13 to ???. Now who’s doctoring statistics.
I think it was probably when he bought his first studded cock ring. But who knows (or wants to know) whats in second place?