The nominee, Russell Vought (up for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget) made the statement in the context of defending his alma mater Wheaton College, which was under attack because, enforcing its "Statement of Faith," it had suspended a professor for saying that Muslims and Christians "worship the same God." In a blog post, Vought elaborated "the theological issue":
Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God who is fully divine (and became fully human). This matters immensely for our salvation. If Christ is not God, he cannot be the necessary substitute on our behalf for the divine retribution that we deserve....The suspended professor had quoted a theologian whom Vought also quotes:
Stackhouse implies that someone could really “know God” without a focus on Jesus. He explains, “Having a deficient (e.g., nontrinitarian) theology of God…does not mean you are not in actual prayerful and faithful relationship with God. (Having wrong ideas about a person…doesn’t mean that you do not have a relationship with that person.)” This is the fundamental problem. Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned....NPR reports:
Ahead of Vought's confirmation hearing, that quote was picked up by advocacy groups concerned about whether Vought could serve all Americans fairly.Quite aside from whether this violates the constitutional rejection of a "religious test," this line of inquiry will take us to hell. If it can be used against Vought, it can be used against many other Christians and also against Muslims:
Sanders brought up the passage, again and again, in the hearing. He asked Vought if he thought his statement was Islamophobic.
"Absolutely not, senator," Vought said
"Do you believe people in the Muslim religion stand condemned?" Sanders asked. "What about Jews? Do they stand condemned, too?"
"I'm a Christian," Vought repeatedly responded.
"I understand you are a Christian," Sanders said, raising his voice. The senator is Jewish and has said he's not particularly religious. "But there are other people who have different religions in this country and around the world. In your judgment, do you think that people who are not Christians are going to be condemned?"
"I believe that all individuals are made in the image of God and are worthy of dignity and respect regardless of their religious beliefs," Vought said, while also emphasizing "the centrality of Jesus Christ in salvation."
"This nominee is really not someone who this country is supposed to be about," Sanders said, announcing that he'd vote against him.
The Pew Research Center recently found that nearly 60 percent of Americans surveyed believe in hell. And among Christians, 48 percent of Protestants and 56 percent of evangelicals believe Christianity is the only path to eternal life....I find that "yes" hard to believe. It's interesting to shine some light now and then on the big topic of religious believers who go about picturing other people headed for eternal damnation. But imagine a new Sandersesque norm, in which we characterize that belief as bigotry and begin to shun everyone who thinks like that! We'd be shunning an awful lot of people, and another matter that used to be considered part of religious freedom will have been relocated into the category of a social belief where it can be impugned without incurring the accusation that to impugn it is to discriminate based on religion.
The Quran is quite clear that there is a hell, says Mohammad Hassan Khalil, a professor of religious studies at Michigan State University and author of Islam and the Fate of Others. The general view is that those who reject the message of Muhammad are damned, he says....
NPR asked Sanders' office if the senator would have challenged a devout Muslim who believed non-Muslims are condemned to hell, in the same way he challenged Vought. Sanders' spokesman said yes.
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258 comments:
1 – 200 of 258 Newer› Newest»"Sweet Jesus"--so to speak. What the heck does religious belief--or non belief--of whatever persuasion--have to do with the duties of an assistant director of the Office of Management and Budget?
What a load of bull on Bernie Sanders' part. But then loads of bull are what your average Senator delivers every day. There's a reason why the American people want someone to drain the swamp on the Potomac. I'm not sure that Trump is able to, or is the right person to drain the swamp, but the job sure needs to be done.
Jews, Christians and Muslims all worship the same God, though they call him different names. All three religions believe they are the only true path to God, and that non-believers will go to Hell.
I don't understand why this is controversial.
Dogmatists aren't great in charge.
You want your religious beliefs taken as nonliteral truths.
I find it utterly implausible that Sanders managed to live in this country for as long as he has without ever encountering the central doctrines of Christianity, even if he is a secular Jew.
The guy is being appointed to a post that has nothing to do with religion.
The left has to defend Islam even when it isn;t the topic of conversation.
That's a sort of Stockholm Syndrome.
That orthodox Christians are getting told their beliefs are unacceptable for public office, while Jews and Muslims are not, is not going to reduce conservative paranoia about that whole "War on Christianity" thing.
"Jews, Christians and Muslims all worship the same God, though they call him different names."
It's not just names. I can see how serious Christians and Jews would see Allah as quite a bit different.
I'm not sure Jews are down with the idea that Jews and Christians worship the same god either.
Bernie should be make pastrami sandwiches at a deli counter. They guy is ridiculous.
I read he failed to make any money at a carpenter when he was young; probably because his sense of entitlement made him lazy. That propaply why he resents Jesus.
There is no hell, other than here for far too many...
Coleridge was ecstatic over the triune God and never made any sense. It may be a central doctrine but doesn't work starting in Sunday School.
72 virgins would have done better, being something the kids could see working towards.
If you're going to dogmatize it.
Bernie wanted this guy to publically denounce his faith. ISIS requires the same of Christians
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
Is the nominee a member of Congress? Is he a lawmaker? If not, leave him alone regarding religion.
On the other hand, Congressmen in particular may not reject nominees based on religious belief.
But somehow the 1st Amendment has come down to: "All Government employees shall hold their tongues at all times regarding religious beliefs."
Memo to Bernie: While you may be a secular Jew you must certainly know that the official policy of Iran is to wipe the Jewish state off of the face of the Earth. With Obama's help, that might just happen.
Doesn't one have to believe in hell first, before it can really matter whether someone else thinks that someone is condemned to hell?
And if you don't believe in hell, and think its nuts that someone believes in hell, what do you think that Christian person is going to do -- try to convert you? Is it now Islamophobic for a Christian to try to convert someone to Christianity?
If you do believe in hell, but still think its nuts that someone might be condemned, then what really, do you think hell is? Some place no one goes?
All Vought had to do was say "render unto Caesar". That would've put Sanders down.
But Vought is not up for Theologian-in-Chief. Sanders was obviously applying a religious test, and that's un-American.
Just to counter Bernie I'm going to skip Catholic Mass today and find a Wisconsin Synod Lutheran service where I can hear a nice long sermon about everyone who isn't going to heaven.
Klavan is ecstatic about Christianity now, rejecting the view that it's a poeticization of ethics, which is curious in an author.
Wittgenstein saw the truth but that it was necessary for it to be nonliteral :
Queer as it sounds : The historical accounts in the Gospels might, historically speaking, be demonstrably false and yet belief would lose nothing by this : _not_, however, because it concerns `univeral truths of reason'! Rather, because historical proof (the historical proof-game) is irrelevant to belief. This message (the Gospels) is seized on by men believingly (ie. lovingly). _That_ is the certainty charactrerizing this particular acceptance-as-true, not something _else_.
A believer's relation to these narratives is _neither_ the relation to historical truth (probability), _nor yet_ that to a theory consisting of `truths of reason.' There is such a thing. - (We have quite different attitudes even to different species of what we call fiction!)
I read : ``No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.'' - And it is true : I cannot call him _Lord_; because that says nothing to me. I could call him ``the paragon,' `God' even - or rather, I can understand it when he is called thus ; but I cannot utter the word ``Lord'' with meaning. _Because I do not believe_ that he will come to judge me ; because _that_ says nothing to me. And it could say something to me, only if I lived _completely_ differently.
What inclines even me to believe in Christ's Resurrection? It is as though I play with the thought. - If he did not rise from the dead, then he decomposed in the grave like any other man. _He is dead and decomposed._ In that case he is a teacher like any other and can no longer _help_ ; and once more we are orphaned and alone. So we have to content ourselves with wisdom and speculation. We are in a sort of hell where we can do nothing but dream, roofed in, as it were, and cut off from heaven. But if I am to be REALLY saved, - what I need is _certainty_ - not wisdom, dreams or speculation - and this certainty is faith. And faith is faith in what is needed by my _heart_, my _soul_, not my speculative intelligence. For it is my soul with its passions, as it were with its flesh and blood, that has to be saved, not my abstract mind. Perhaps we can say : Only _love_ can believe the Resurrection. Or : It is _love_ that believes the Resurrection. We might say : Redeeming love believes even in the Resurrection ; holds fast even to the Resurrection. What combats doubt is, as it were, _redemption_. Holding fast to _this_ must be holding fast to that belief. So what that means is : first you must be redeemed and hold on to your redemption (keep hold of your redemption) - then you will see that you are holding fast to this belief. So this can come about only if you no longer rest your weight on the earth but suspend yourself from heaven. Then _everything_ will be different and it will be `no wonder' if you can do things that you cannot do now. (A man who is suspended looks the same as one who is standing, but the interplay of forces within him is nevertheless quite different, so that he can act quite differently than can a standing man.)
_Culture and Value_ p.32-33 (1937)
Damn the damnation, full speed ahead.
People in countries where vampires are common are more likely to believe in heaven and hell.
It's not just names. I can see how serious Christians and Jews would see Allah as quite a bit different.
Yes..that's why they are different religions, because each has differing ideas about God. It is still the same god.
I'm not sure Jews are down with the idea that Jews and Christians worship the same god either.
Christianity can be seen as a form of Jewish heresy. Originally all Christians were Jews first.
So people may express their certainty as dogmatism, which is a mistake.
"It's not just names. I can see how serious Christians and Jews would see Allah as quite a bit different."
It's easier to say that Jews and Muslims worship the same God that that Christians do, because of the doctrine of the Trinity.
Sanders is attempting to impose a religious test for a public office. A clear violation of Article VI, section 3 of some old document or other.
So, Sanders believes that people who believe what, until very recently, the vast majority of Americans believed about salvation makes them unfit for public office. People who are Christians (aside from the kind whose religion is actually secular progressivism with a bit of "spirituality" thrown in) are not "who we are".
There is hell in Muslim theology, no? And I'm pretty sure lots of other religions are rather judgmental and exclude-y about final rewards. The population of "who we are" sure is getting exclusive.
I'm always puzzled why some non-believers get so terribly butthurt about what some believer thinks is going to happen to them in the world to come, which the butthurtee doesn't believe in, anyway. That my neighbor thinks I'm going to hell does not affect my life in any way. Oh, the hysterics claim that my neighbors present a terrible danger to my life, limbs, and rights, but the only people I see persecuting other people for heresy these days are these same hysterics.
Just because a secularist like Bernie wants to take his religious belief and impose it on the rest of the country doesn't mean that others can't separate belief from state.
Are you now, or have you ever been, a Christian?
Bernie Sander's God: http://www.apatheticagnostic.com/articles/meds3/med56/med1214.html
'“What the hell are you getting so upset about?” he asked her bewilderedly in a tone of contrite amusement. “I thought you didn’t believe in God.”
“I don’t,” she sobbed, bursting violently into tears. “But the God I don’t believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He’s not the mean and stupid God you make Him out to be.”'
"This nominee is really not someone who this country is supposed to be about," Sanders said
...about someone who is a pretty good example of who this country was about for the past 228 years. Who, then, is the country about? Please enlighten us, Bernie, you fucking tool.
I believe the correct phrasing here is "Bernie Sanders attacks nominee for agreeing with Jesse Jackson on theology."
Bernie has forgotten his heritage:
"At this time some astrologers came forward and denounced the Jews. They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, “May the king live forever! Your Majesty has issued a decree that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music must fall down and worship the image of gold, and that whoever does not fall down and worship will be thrown into a blazing furnace."
No Gahrie, that only makes sense if there really is a god, and only one of them. God is a fiction, these are different fictions. The Islamic God, the Jewish god and the Christian god all hate different people.
"Christianity can be seen as a form of Jewish heresy. Originally all Christians were Jews first."
The Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, and Romans may beg to differ.
(If you want to hear Jesse Jackson declaring "the only way a person can be saved is in the church of Christ", well, click there and listen.
Everybody is the messiah. Otherwise religion makes no sense.
The attributes of God are to be taken as imperatives.
That's two of the three.
I can't make sense of the third.
Leftists think that our freedom of speech ends at something they define as "hate speech". Bernie is just applying their standard to religious freedom.
That's a failing of two separate Sunday Schools.
Sanders, so far as I can tell, doesn't think he's imposing a "religious test" because he thinks religion consists of quirky beliefs about God and oddball clothing and food practices. He, and others like him, think that once you're reached questions of morality, or how you or other people should behave, or, in fact, anything having to do with what other people should believe, it's not religion anymore. (Except when it's convenient: objections to abortion are always: "Don't try to impose your religion on me!")
If you believe someone is going to Hell, that's a mean thing, and "real" religions clearly don't believe mean things, so it's not a religious test, it's a test about whether you have mean opinions.
I think it's the same thing that leads people to say that ISIS isn't Muslim: religions are about being nice to people, ISIS isn't nice to people, hence, it can't be a religion.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/janetheactuary/2017/06/bernie-sanders-attempt-impose-religious-test.html
The thing is that you don't want a dogmatic messiah.
Angel-Dyne said...
I'm always puzzled why some non-believers get so terribly butthurt about what some believer thinks is going to happen to them in the world to come, which the butthurtee doesn't believe in, anyway.
I've never heard of such a thing. Any examples?
"Any examples?"
Well, I hear there was this Senator who got all bent out of shape when some nominee for a gov't job said that.
Under the corruptocrat law of jerk-off: You shall not ever hold a negative opinion about Islam. Islam is the sacred, leftist approved, women subjugating, be-heading, burn humans alive in cages, official approved victimized region of leftwing approval. Aloha.
Aloha ackbar.
The religion of black lava ashtrays.
But imagine a new Sandersesque norm, in which we characterize that belief as bigotry and begin to shun everyone who thinks like that!
I'm throwing the bullshit flag. It wasn't that long ago, Ann, when you were cheerleading the effort to destroy Memories Pizza and Melissa Klein, precisely because orthodox Christian beliefs held for centuries were all of a sudden conflated with bigotry.
If Sanders is putting us on a road to Hell, it's one you helped pave.
Paco: I find it utterly implausible that Sanders managed to live in this country for as long as he has without ever encountering the central doctrines of Christianity, even if he is a secular Jew.
It's possible, if not probable, that Sanders was never exposed to any but the nambiest-pambiest of liberal Christianity. I've encountered quite a lot of secular Americans who are sincerely put out to discover that some (most?) religions hold that there is a litmus test for salvation, and it ain't just fulfilling some prog milquetoast's highly elastic notion of "being a good person".
But I think it more likely that our contemporary secular jihadis know perfectly well what Christians believe, they just feel confident and in control enough these days to openly attempt to drive them out of the public square.
Another view:
“Father and teachers, I ponder, What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”
~ Fyodor Dostoevsky
The orthodox Christian belief that same sex marriage is a sin is dogmatic; the belief that it's not marriage is empirical. It's like the belief that a tree stump is not a chair even if pushed against a wall: if you don't know that, you don't know what a chair is.
Jane the Actuary said, "I think it's the same thing that leads people to say that ISIS isn't Muslim: religions are about being nice to people, ISIS isn't nice to people, hence, it can't be a religion."
Yes. It's a Christianist bias. Jesus's innovation was to introduce love and tolerance as the defining features of moral life. If you're raised in a Christianist society, you'll tend to make the mistake of thinking that all religions are like that. They're all good, tolerant, peaceful, and loving. Buddhists and all that.
They're not, though. Challenge your imagination. There are evil, malevolent, warlike, hateful people out there who consider themselves religious. That's what the Koran teaches.
There's North Koran and South Koran. One with the lights out and one with lights all over.
Fernandinande: I've never heard of such a thing. Any examples?
See Paco, above.
Of course, you have no obligation to credit anecdotes about my personal experience with such people.
Surely the only answer needed here is that who is or isn't damned is no business of the government. Unfortunately that wouldn't work against Sanders, who can't conceive of there being anything that isn't the business of the government.
"and the Christian god all hate different people."
Hence the "Golden Rule". Do unto others before they do unto you.
Atheists like Bernie get very upset when you tell them that they may not go to Heaven. They think Heaven should have a nondiscrimination policy, not unlike their immigration policy - everybody gets in!
Maybe Bernie, at age 75, is finally starting to think of these important issues. He spent many years, even decades, simply goofing off. One would think that after a strenuous day of avoiding work in his Vermont cabin, he would've plopped down on his bean bag, turned on the used record player, smoked a little dope and listened to a little Bob Dylan, "Knocking on Heaven's Door" for some perspective and inspiration.
Paco Wové said...
"Any examples?"
Well, I hear there was this Senator who got all bent out of shape when some nominee for a gov't job said that.
Cynical political questioning is not an expression of being "terribly butthurt", and besides, Sanders claims to believe in god, so he's some sort of believer.
So, Angel-Dyne, no examples? Or is it your pretense that Sanders's questioning is an example of someone who is "terribly butthurt"? That's just ridiculous.
Twilight faith. Pro-Choice quasi-religious/moral/legal philosophy. Mortal gods and goddesses. Conflation of logical domains. Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. Elective wars. Catastrophic Anthropogenic Immigration Reform. Redistributive and, apparently, retributive change. [class] diversity. Selective exclusion. Life deemed unworthy. Sanders needs to compare and contrast his own beliefs.
Unless we have a state church I don't see what the problem is.
People believe whatever they want to. You can't stop them :-) But they are also 'Responsible' for what they believe. Belief is a choice and as with all choices each individual is 'responsible' for their choices, including what they choose to believe.
I missed this post...
Angel-Dyne said...
See Paco, above.
So you're just being silly, and no examples.
The word "religion" and the "no religious test" clause in the Constitution originally referred only to mainstream, Bible-centric Protestantism. The Founders were not interested in promoting such heathen faiths as Islam, Wiccanism, or Scientology.
cubanbob, the problem is that atheism is the state church. Atheism is a creepy religion.
The Jesuits have a simple solution to the problem of nonbelievers and a good God: At the moment of death (or shortly thereafter), an unbeliever is suddenly enlightened as to the truth. And now, as believer, has the freedom to make his or her choice.
All three religions have lots of sects, not to mention individuals, with wildly different ideas about not only the nature of the Deity, but anything else they can think of with respect to their religion, and they all stoutly claim that their version is the only true one that will lead you to certain salvation while all non-believers will be cast into everlasting Hell (except of course, for all those of either religion who do not believe in Hell).
Bay Area Guy said...
Atheists like Bernie get very upset when you tell them that they may not go to Heaven.
Sanders:
"First of all, I am not an atheist"
"Religion is a guiding principle in my life—absolutely it is."
So you're claiming that atheists who believe in god and are religious get upset.
Real atheists, you know the kind who don't believe in god(s), just laugh at that nonsense. I've never heard a different response.
"Hell is yourself too."
~ Robert Crumb
As a moderate, who went to a moderate school, I believe that all you other fuckers going to hell.
Fernandinande: So, Angel-Dyne, no examples?
Nothing but examples from personal experience, which consist of people expressing offense at other people thinking they're going to hell. I won't be butthurt if you think I'm lying about my personal experience with people getting offended because other people thought they were going to hell. I tend to be skeptical of people's personal anecdotes on the internet, too.
Sanders does indeed seem very butthurt about this point of standard Christian doctrine. Insisting that someone who believes in standard Christian doctrine is unfit for public office in the United States seems pretty butthurt to me.
Why are you so butthurt about this?
Fernandinande said, "Real atheists, you know the kind who don't believe in god(s), just laugh at that nonsense. I've never heard a different response."
See, that's the problem. A real atheist doesn't just not believe. Non-belief is common, even among religious people. Faith issues are common in religion. People who don't go to church don't understand that. Crap, the Bible is full of such stories. Read a little.
A real atheist doesn't just disbelieve, but insists that God doesn't exist. Defend that!
Good Lord. This line of questioning is completely out of order.
The Senator has sworn to uphold the Constitution, and he violated that by denying the man "freedom from religion."
Of course the idiot should have said "I'm sorry Senator, but your line of question is not appropriate, and I will not discuss religion in a whorehouse."
Fernandinande said...
Angel-Dyne said...
I'm always puzzled why some non-believers get so terribly butthurt about what some believer thinks is going to happen to them in the world to come, which the butthurtee doesn't believe in, anyway.
I've never heard of such a thing. Any examples?
6/11/17, 9:12 AM
In college, an atheist acquaintance of mine got very indignant when a street preacher told him he was going to hell. It was amusing.
Fundamentalist Christians have different beliefs regarding Mary, the Pope, saints, etc. than Catholics do. I don't care what they think because they are not blowing me up or shooting me.
It doesn't seem to occur to secular Jews that whenever you see a Muslim woman with a headscarf, you are looking at someone who almost certainly thinks the state of Israel should be destroyed and would celebrate if it happened. Hatred of Israel is almost a bedrock belief, and yet Bernie frets over a Christian who thinks he's going to hell.
Bernie, he might think you're going to hell, but he doesn't think it's his sacred duty to send you there himself.
Bernie Sanders needs to be tied into a chair and beaten to death with a lead pipe.
That dumbass is STILL scolding people for being islamophobic? How many candle light vigils, weepy hashtags, and shredded children do Ya gotta see before you get the idea that maybe some of those mutts SHOULD be sent to hell? A full blown race war is setting up and may expand into a civil war... And that idiot lectures and scolds and fans the flames.
“It’s not about ‘deserve.’ It’s about what you believe. And I believe in love.”
~ Wonder Woman
Atheism is not a religious/moral philosophy. It is a conflation of logical domains.
The State-established Church is Pro-Choice, selective, opportunistic, and unprincipled. It is a Church led by mortal gods, interpreted by liberal judges, teachers, scientists, profits (sic), etc., and attended by the twilight (a.k.a. penumbra) faithful.
I wonder how long before the dysfunctional convergence.
This makes me furious. If I had been the nominee I would have asked Mister Sanders "to be fair are you going to ask every Muslim that gets nominated about his beliefs, about whether he believes anyone can be saved without accepting Allah, or whether someone who leaves the Muslim faith is damned. What about Jewish candidates - are you going to ask them about all this crap you hear about Jews regarding themselves as the "chosen people" regarded above all others in the eyes of God? Is there any strong religious faith among the major religions that in your mind can be held without disqualifying one for public office?"
I'm not very religious but this type of attitude makes me sick. Piss off Bernie.
"The Pew Research Center recently found that nearly 60 percent of Americans surveyed believe in hell."
This is a big part of our problem, right here. Along with the reality that few Americans read. We are a nation of blind idiot children. But then, are we different from people in other nations? We're all just animals stumbling and flailing fearfully in an indifferent cosmos, led by fools and lunatics, worshipping and fighting over phantasms.
I wonder how sanguine the commenters criticizing Sanders would be if a Muslim candidate for a federal position publicly asserted that Christians, not being believers in Allah or followers of the Quran, therefore "stand condemned."
Well I thought the Christian dude did well
Sanders' line of questioning seems completely inappropriate. Why is he going there? If he wants to black-ball the guy, there are far less ugly and obviously illegal ways. It's as if he *wants* to stir up indignation among Christians and, yes, people who just care about the Constitution.
Does Bernie have a deeper game going? Or is he just incredibly stupid and bad at his job?
Bernir needs to go down to Venezuela and explain to Maduro how to apply the principles of socialism properly, leading to peace and prosperity for all.
Robert Cook said...
"The Pew Research Center recently found that nearly 60 percent of Americans surveyed believe in hell."
This is a big part of our problem, right here.
Pretty sure you are going to hell.
"Sanguine" is a word that nowadays has a new meaning. It's a snarky thing, meaning "I, the writer, am signaling that the person I'm talking about is a baddee."
Quite far from its etymological roots.
"A real atheist doesn't just disbelieve, but insists that God doesn't exist."
I fail to see the distinction you're trying to make. Is there such a thing an atheist who is not a "real atheist?""Disbelieving," by definition, is an insistence that god does not exist.
Perhaps you're thinking of agnostics, who do not insist there is no god, but merely claim lack of sufficient knowledge to hold active belief or disbelief.
Cookie ponders: I wonder how sanguine the commenters criticizing Sanders would be if a Muslim candidate for a federal position publicly asserted that Christians, not being believers in Allah or followers of the Quran, therefore "stand condemned."
This is what Muslims believe. Virtually all major faiths have exclusivity beliefs. But that is not the issue with Muslims. It is their ideology that is inconsistent with American values. And European values. AFAIK, neither Christians nor Jews want to destroy/eliminate unbelievers from the earth.
Robert Cook, you're getting there. It's difficult, but not impossible, to understand the differences.
"'Sanguine' is a word that nowadays has a new meaning. It's a snarky thing, meaning 'I, the writer, am signaling that the person I'm talking about is a baddee.'"
Umm, no.
Fernandinande said...
Angel-Dyne said...
I'm always puzzled why some non-believers get so terribly butthurt about what some believer thinks is going to happen to them in the world to come, which the butthurtee doesn't believe in, anyway.
I've never heard of such a thing. Any examples?
6/11/17, 9:12 AM
I have one. I'm Mormon, and of course as such we believe in Jesus's statement that you have to be baptized to get into heaven.
Which presents a problem: what about the people who never hear of Jesus? Not quite fair, is it? So we believe that we can be baptized on behalf of the dead, and thus the dead have the right to accept Jesus and still have the saving baptism performed for them. They can also reject it, too--their choice.
So, baptism for the Dead. Lots and lots of people think that we are somehow converting their dead family members to Mormonism against their will. In particular, the Jews made a huge deal about it; to the point the Israeli Government and the LDS church made an agreement where we Mormons do not perform the baptism for the dead for Jews and in particular holocaust victims.
I've never figured out why people are so upset by our belief. Surely we aren't making people Mormon against their will. And why does the Jewish government care? What power does our ceremonies have unless we are, in fact, Jesus's true church? Only in the scenario where you believe LDS doctrine would any of this matter. And yet lots of people give us apparently the ability to convert dead people. If we can, it's because our religious claims are true. And if that's the case.... why don't they join the LDS church? Makes no sense--either we Mormons can and do have authority from God to baptize, or we don't. If we don't, our ceremonies do nothing.
In any case, there's a large example for you. As for Senator Sanders: it's not new, this whole "Christians need to be banned from everything!" the left is trotting out. Frequently in my daily rag, whenever LGBT rights or stories happen, we have the same leftists commentators arguing that churches should be muzzled because opposing homosexuality is political, not moral anymore. And some have even said the 1st Amendment does not apply in public spaces; and your right to worship consists of praying or otherwise worshipping in a basement, where no one can hear you; and if your service somehow can be heard outside the building then you are ripe for punishment. Because religion must be shunned from public life completely. Of course, it's only Christian religion that is a candidate for being banned--like Robert Cook just demonstrated, Islam is a-ok with the left.
--Vance
Vance, the thief on the cross next to Jesus went to heaven, as Jesus pardoned him because of belief in Him. He wasn't baptized. I won't go into arguments against baptism for the dead.
"This is what Muslims believe. Virtually all major faiths have exclusivity beliefs."
Nonetheless, if a Muslim candidate for a federal office or position were to publicly state that Christians "stand condemned" for "rejecting" Allah, there would be widespread public and media outrage and that candidate would be done.
"But that is not the issue with Muslims. It is their ideology that is inconsistent with American values. And European values. AFAIK, neither Christians nor Jews want to destroy/eliminate unbelievers from the earth."
How do you know that all Muslims want to "destroy/eliminate unbelievers from the earth?" I don't know that to be true at all. And what "American values?" We are and have been since our beginning a violent and aggressive people, internally and externally.
Oy vey! Where to begin...Ok, Sanders is imposing a religious test. I think the nominee took the best route by not getting into the endless thicket of theology. Not the time or place, and Sanders would likely not engage in good faith (so to speak). My response would probably have been to amplify the comment that his religion teaches him to treat all people equally and with respect. IMO, Jesus was crystal clear that his followers were to make it their priority (after loving God) to love their neighbor. And He spelled out that loving your neighbor meant actively caring for anyone in need. 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.' New Living Translation. NOWHERE did Jesus predicate devoting your entire life to helping others on first determining what if any faith they followed. You give the shirt off your back to help the person who has none; you feed the hungry; you visit those in prison. You do this regardless of if they are Jews or Christians or Samaritans or Muslims or Gentiles.
"Pretty sure you are going to hell."
Hahaha! Good one, ARM!
By the way, theologically speaking, I think lots of sincere Christians and possibly Jews believe in Allah too. We just refer to him by his other names: Baal, Satan, Lucifer, etc. Tlaloc or some of the other Aztec gods. Pretty much all the same person; also known as the "God of this world." One of Satan's greatest triumphs has been his success in convincing people he doesn't exist.
--Vance
" I don't know that to be true at all. "
You could read the Quran.
Blogger Gahrie said...
Jews, Christians and Muslims all worship the same God, though they call him different names.
Allah is simply one of many pronunciations of Yahweh the OT, Mosaic, name for God. Many Christians still use the word Yahweh regularly to refer to God.
Islam recognizes, more or less, Moses and Mosaic Law as do Christians. More or less.
Forget it Jake, It's Bernie Sanders.
John Henry
Mock turtle: I know that lots of Christians don't believe in it, and we could have a nice theological debate. The fact is that we believe in it, and lots of people apparently believe it means something and has power, because they strenuously attack us as if it does have power.
Make of that what you will. Why do the Jews think that somehow we are converting their ancestors to being Mormon if our ordinance is pointless? That's the argument I'm making, as an answer to Fernandinande's comment. Not arguing at this time for the validity or not of the practice (your thief on the cross example is easy; he went where Jesus went when He died.. and since Jesus told Mary He had not ascended to His Father after that point, clearly wherever they went was not where God was. Ergo, not heaven--someplace else.)
It is blasphemy to suggest that God is less than Love.
I think the meaningful distinction here is that they are using arguments about qualifications for a RELIGIOUS institution and trying to pretend that they are arguments about qualifications for daily/public life. There is a huge difference.
Ann's points are all well-taken. In a political context, Senator Ellison's beliefs about salvation, etc, have no place. One presumes that synagogues, churches, temples, and mosques all have certain religious criteria for positions/offices. That's because they are religious-purpose institutions - and religious academies, seminaries, and religious universities may have the same. I would expect Senator Ellison, who is Muslim, to have certain prerequisites in mind for imams who preached in his mosque. That would in no way disqualify him to hold public office, because in the United States, public office is NOT ABOUT RELIGION.
To blur these distinctions is to do great harm to the civic life and culture of the country. It's not a good deed in any way.
The statement of belief that is important for public life, and to which adherence should be imposed as a condition of holding public office, is our constitution. Well, Bernie Sanders is something of a batty old dude, but here he's just so screamingly wrong that I am thankful he didn't win the Democratic nomination. Never, ever thought I'd be thinking THAT.
I do think Bernie Sanders is betraying the Constitution here. I think that disqualifies HIM from public service.
Gah, that last unknown was me. Forgot to sign. And now off to church so I'm done for this thread.
--Vance
Yesterday, sunsong lovingly commented: "He is a piece of shit! Trump is a lying, corrupt bullying piece of shit!" and now today talks about believing in 'love'.
Feel the love, Wonder Woman!
But she is right about one thing: 'It's not what you deserve, it's what you believe'.
The problem with the candidate calling non-Christians "condemned" is less for his belief--as mockturtle points out, most religions have exclusivity claims--but with his lack of discretion, good manners, and simple common sense in making the statement publicly. It's an open insult to millions of American citizens. This raises questions about his good judgment and whether he might allow his religious beliefs to influence his performance of his public duties.
Robert Cook: "The Pew Research Center recently found that nearly 60 percent of Americans surveyed believe in hell."
This is a big part of our problem, right here.
Fucking Christians (and assorted other believers-in-hell). What did they ever contribute to this country?
And 30, 50, 100, 200 years ago even bigger percentages of Americans believed in hell. Someday, inshallah, this number will dwindle to insignificance, and we can finally begin to make something decent out of the worthless hellhole (pun!) our ignorant ancestors created.
We are a nation of blind idiot children. But then, are we different from people in other nations? We're all just animals stumbling and flailing fearfully in an indifferent cosmos, led by fools and lunatics, worshipping and fighting over phantasms.
tl;dr: "Get off my lawn."
Your indignant misanthropic Gramps act is getting tedious, Robert.
And aren't you a bit long in the tooth to have just discovered the tragic nature of human history? At the rate your going, you're going to snuff it before you get past the late adolescent/early adulthood developmental stage of thinking that getting rid of "religion" and "belief in sky fairies" is going to magically redeem human nature. If everyone stopped believing in God or gods we'd still be shits, and the sum total of stupidity, ignorance, idiotic convictions, and reasons for fighting each other would not budge an inch.
Can't resist one final comment. Sunsong said "God is love". Yes. That's true.
Who's more loving? The parent who punishes their kid for wandering too close to the bear cave and has strict rules for "don't go near the bear cave" or the parent who says, "Yeah, man.... the bear cave sounds fun. Go do it!" And then wonders why their kid gets eaten.
The Progressives preach the latter as "love." Real love has restrictions too.
--Vance
How do you know that all Muslims want to "destroy/eliminate unbelievers from the earth?" I don't know that to be true at all. And what "American values?" We are and have been since our beginning a violent and aggressive people, internally and externally.
Cookie, how much time have you spent living in other countries? America may not be perfect but it beats the hell out of anyplace else.
That "yes" is impossible to believe. I don't think there is a single Democrat in the House or Senate who would dare ask such a question of a Muslim candidate because it violently violates the current "Islamphobia Panic" that grips the PC world.
mockturtle said...
and now today talks about believing in 'love'.
Sometimes tough love is the best kind of love.
Others have brought up an important question I want to develop. Why should unbelievers care if they are called 'condemned' by a God in whom they do not believe? A Muslim can call me an 'infidel' till the cows come home and it wouldn't bother me one bit. But if he tries to kill me, I take umbrage.
Robert Cooke asks:
"I wonder how sanguine the commenters criticizing Sanders would be if a Muslim candidate for a federal position publicly asserted that Christians, not being believers in Allah or followers of the Quran, therefore "stand condemned."
I don't have a problem with Muslims believing that I, a non-Muslim, ain't getting into Heaven. That's what they belief. C'est la vie. I'm not entirely sure there is a Heaven or if there is, I will get an invite.
My main problem with Muslims is that some of their fanatical adherents blow up buildings and shoot and stab innocents in the name of Allah. They're also backwards on sex, women rights and violence towards gays.
Blogger Unknown said...
we Mormons do not perform the baptism for the dead for Jews and in particular holocaust victims.
What about the 6mm non-Jewish Holocaust victims that we so seldom see mentioned. Can Mormons Baptize them?
That assumes that the term "Holocaust" covers the 6mm non-Jews that were murdered in the National Socialist death camps. Lots of people think "Holocaust" just covers the Jewish victims.
The others? Dead and forgotten like the other 90mm victims of socialism in the 20th century.
We need to remember them all. Never forget.
Some Jews get really upset about that last paragraph. Somehow they think mentioning the other 6mm diminishes the 6mm Jews who died. I get upset at them for getting upset.
John Henry
PS: I am butthurt that I sent Sanders' campaign money!!!! I'm an idiot for doing that! I will certainly never do it again.
Trump may not be my idea of the ideal presidential candidate, but certainly I am glad neither Clinton nor Sanders is our president! Of the three, he's looking better all the time.
If Sanders and Clinton would just shut up and get off the public stage, maybe the Democratic party could get its feet under it and rebuild for 2018 and 2020. As it is, those two are wrecking balls.
Robert Cook: The problem with the candidate calling non-Christians "condemned" is less for his belief--as mockturtle points out, most religions have exclusivity claims--but with his lack of discretion, good manners, and simple common sense in making the statement publicly.
Christian theology, it's always been a big gnostic SEE-KRIT in this country. Don't let the infidels in on it! Christian taqiyya - it's only good manners!
Wtf, Robert.
It's an open insult to millions of American citizens.
I can be pretty touchy sometimes, but I'm damned if I can figure out what I'm supposed to be "insulted" by here. Or were you referring to some other subset of the population besides non-believers or non-Christians?
You're "insulted" by a standard, openly preached point of Christian (and other) theology that's been around for centuries?
Fernandinande assured me that you didn't exist.
Elaine (on finding that Puddy is a Christian): So is it a problem that I'm not religious?
Puddy: Not for me.
Elaine: Why not?
Puddy: I'm not the one going to Hell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE0nenGeW5A
John Henry
"If everyone stopped believing in God or gods we'd still be shits, and the sum total of stupidity, ignorance, idiotic convictions, and reasons for fighting each other would not budge an inch."
Exactly. Althouse recently posted a link to a horrific article about how students tortured and murdered their teachers during China's Cultural Revolution. They weren't doing it because of disputes about the nature of the Trinity.
Christianity recognizes the fallen nature of mankind and offers hope and redemption. Leftists operate under the illusion that Utopia is possible here on earth, but first Utopia must be purified by getting rid of the deplorables, the kulaks, the wrong thinkers. They will always and inevitably be disappointed when their Worldly Paradise doesn't quite pan out. Well, they're disappointed for 5 minutes, and then they decide that next time, it will work out. Really, it will, with better people in charge!
"You could read the Quran."
It doesn't matter what the Quran says. How many self-identified Christians have ever read the Bible from start to end, or even partially? Of those, how many believe it literally? How many accept and actively practice every one of its precepts? How many accept it "in general" or "in principle," but ignore those aspects of it that conflict with modern sensibilities or their own personal beliefs? (And, when we speak of Christians, do we mean those who are familiar with and adhere to the whole Bible, or just adherents of the New Testament? The Old Testament, after all, has nothing to do with Christianity, except, perhaps, that it can be considered the "prequel" to the story of Christ. And what about the books of the Bible that have been excluded from the "authorized" publication?)
Human beings are all pretty much the same everywhere, so I think you'll find that most Muslims are about as lacking in familiarity with the Quran and as absent of literal and zealous belief in Islam's precepts as are most Christians. And, you assume that even practicing Muslims conversant in Islamic theology hold universally to one doctrinal belief system. Do you hold the same assumption about all Christians? Of course not.
MOM asserts: If Sanders and Clinton would just shut up and get off the public stage, maybe the Democratic party could get its feet under it and rebuild for 2018 and 2020. As it is, those two are wrecking balls.
Yes. I probably would have voted for Jim Webb but he didn't fit the prevailing Dem narrative. They need a total overhaul. Or perhaps we need a third party.
The Progressives preach the latter as "love." Real love has restrictions too.
Not true! It is NOT love to send your kid to a bear cave. That's so obvious it is deceptive to present it as 'truth'. There is no need to punish or hit the kid. That's the difference between punitive Christians and progressives. We don't want anyone hurting children (or anyone) whether physical, mentally, emotionally or spiritually.
I've never understood the concept of "Secular Judaism". A religion, Judaism, Christianity, Muslim, Hindu, Shinto etc is something that one believes in. Many different ways of believing, of course.
But to say one is a Jew who doesn't believe in Judaism seems like an oxymoron to me. Like a Christian atheist.
Sanders is no more a "Jew" than he is an "independent". Not in any meaningful sense of either word.
John Henry
"Fernandinande assured me that you didn't exist."
RC is not a "true atheist", obviously.
In my experience there are very few true atheists, but there are a lot of antitheists or Christianophobes.
Most people haven't thought on such things deeply, and that includes a lot of nominal Christians.
Exiled observes wisely: Christianity recognizes the fallen nature of mankind and offers hope and redemption. Leftists operate under the illusion that Utopia is possible here on earth, but first Utopia must be purified by getting rid of the deplorables, the kulaks, the wrong thinkers. They will always and inevitably be disappointed when their Worldly Paradise doesn't quite pan out. Well, they're disappointed for 5 minutes, and then they decide that next time, it will work out. Really, it will, with better people in charge!
Yes!!! Tell this to Cookie!
Sunsong: Metaphor. Look into it.
Really, it will, with better people in charge!
Also less squeamishness about getting rid of all the non-socialist non-believers.
Socialism cannot work without mass murder. Read Capital to see why. You only have to read about 5 pages in, perhaps less depending on translation/edition.
John Henry
Dand Mazed Out Mama--you say of Trump "of the three (Clinton and Sanders being the other two) he's looking better all the time".
That's damning the Donald with faint praise indeed. Still he is Not Hillary. So there is that.
mockturtle said...
Others have brought up an important question I want to develop. Why should unbelievers care if they are called 'condemned' by a God in whom they do not believe? A Muslim can call me an 'infidel' till the cows come home and it wouldn't bother me one bit. But if he tries to kill me, I take umbrage."
Because according to the modern Left, words and "hate speech" are somehow as bad as actions.
Or worse. Christians saying "I don't believe gays should marry" are worse than Muslims who actually throw gays off buildings. Hence you have brain dead organizations like "Queers for Palestine."
As Lenin said, it's all about who, whom.
"Stand condemned" before God.
No one stands condemned before the Office of the Assistant Director of the Office of Management and Budget. The Assistant Director, it seems pretty clear, is following his God's wishes: condemn not, lest you be condemned.
Bernie should have taken notice. His lack of discernment in this is staggering demonstration of ignorance matched equally with arrogance. Par for the course, when it comes to most people, if you ask me.
""Christianity can be seen as a form of Jewish heresy. Originally all Christians were Jews first."
The Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, and Romans may beg to differ."
You are talking Early Church, and not Really Early Church. Jesus and his 12 original Disciples were, of course, observant, circumcised Jews. Jesus, at least, was well schooled in Jewish theology and scripture of the time. Presumably during his life and then for a bit after his death, conversion to Judaism, including male circumcism, was required of Gentile converts to very early Christianity. This was, apparently, part of a very early dispute between James, who headed the church in Jerusalem, and Peter, then Paul, who prostalized the Gentiles. They won, and the rest is history.
Not sure that I would characterize Christianity as heresy at the time of its founding, but rather, maybe just another sect, which, was apparently, at that time, one of many. But, the victors get to write the history, and I think that you can see this in the New Testament. Judaism apparently went through a crisis of faith and great turmoil during the early years of the Christian church, with the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans. How does a temple based religion worship and justify itself when it no longer has a temple to worship in? From that dilemma came Rabinnic Judaism, an outgrowth primarily, apparently, of the Jewish Pharisees. And, they were the ones whom the early Christian Church were finding themselves opposing. It is interesting to view this from the New Testament, where the Pharisees moved from being another sect somewhat in opposition to the Temple centric sects like the Levites and Sadducees, to the primary opposition to the Christians. But these weren't the only sects of Judaism at the time of Jesus. There were apparently a number of them, including apocalyptic ones like the one responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls.
"Why should unbelievers care if they are called 'condemned' by a God in whom they do not believe? A Muslim can call me an 'infidel' till the cows come home and it wouldn't bother me one bit. But if he tries to kill me, I take umbrage."
How about if he is in a position to write legislation or administer public policy that would be discriminatory or otherwise harmful to you? A person lacking in sense and discretion such that he would declare his religious beliefs so bluntly might also lack the restraint and probity to abide by his responsibility to serve all citizens equally.
So, Jesus was a penniless wanderer teaching peace and love with his rag-tag followers, and he was publicly executed, and Muhammad, whom Muslims believe was the 'seal' of the prophets (the final word), was a warlord with an army who ordered public executions.
Could someone please explain how this makes sense?
Yesterday, sunsong lovingly commented: "He is a piece of shit! Trump is a lying, corrupt bullying piece of shit!" and now today talks about believing in 'love'.
I gotta wonder if there isn't some deep-seated, repressed spousal-hatred or even unresolved daddy issues at play with sunsong. Inga too, to a certain degree.
My mother was a 'true atheist' and my father an agnostic. My father admitted that he would like to believe in God but couldn't. Mother believed that religion was at the root of all human misadventure. When I became a Christian at the age of 37 she was disappointed. But we remained close, we both read a great deal and could discuss everything but religion with equanimity.
John Henry: But to say one is a Jew who doesn't believe in Judaism seems like an oxymoron to me. Like a Christian atheist.
I dunno, Jewishness has an ethnic/cultural component, and so, really do some Christian denominations - regardless of the fact that outsiders can convert into them. Being a "cultural Catholic" is certainly a thing - I consider myself one. (For example, I'm not a believer, but I still find myself all butthurt about Constantinople, and would probably go crusading if the call went out.)
Could someone please explain how this makes sense?
Mohammed preached "hate thy neighbor;" it was the anti-thesis of Christ. Given a timeline, it's not hard to see that Islam had reactionary roots.
I'm not at all surprised that Winner Reality had a deep admiration for radical Islam.
I gotta wonder if there isn't some deep-seated, repressed spousal-hatred or even unresolved daddy issues at play with sunsong.
I do believe in Love. And Trump is currently a piece of shit. Being loving does not mean being dishonest. If Trump were to take heed of his lying and corruption and change that would be good for him, don't you think?
Robert Cook: How about if he is in a position to write legislation or administer public policy that would be discriminatory or otherwise harmful to you? A person lacking in sense and discretion such that he would declare his religious beliefs so bluntly might also lack the restraint and probity to abide by his responsibility to serve all citizens equally.
That's an assertion, not an argument, and it's bullshit.
You're floundering around for an argument that believing Christians should be purged from the public square. And you're not being very "discreet" about *your* desire to practice irrational discrimination, either.
Robert Cook - but the context of the "public statement" was in a theological debate. Not a debate about public life. You either are ignoring that context or would like to impose an unconstitutional belief test on public officeholders, which, in my opinion, makes you a high-level bigot and a person who grossly misunderstands the lessons of western history.
Here's context:
http://theresurgent.com/wheaton-college-and-the-preservation-of-theological-clarity/
That has nothing to do with civic life. It has to do with the principles necessary to hold a professorship at an institution with a professed purpose (a Christian education) and a minimum credo necessary to hold that office.
Note: in Christian belief, we are all condemned under God's law. So "condemned" here means under Mosaic Law. The Christian belief is that we are condemned by the law and saved by the mercy of God through the agency of JC. In part this is because of original sin, which has corrupted the world, blah, blah, which means that many, or most, or all human beings do not fully have the free ability to conform to God's law. This belief system both preserves a belief in the justice of God's law and recognizes the practical injustice it may impose on individuals.
Now, I happen to feel that Vought and Wheaton have the right to demand that conformity to Wheaton's statement of belief is necessary to teach there. Religious-purpose institutions have those rights. As a Christian, I happen to believe also that Vought is wrong in the particulars on this one Christian. But what does that have to do with anything else?
If we move away from our constitutional principles, we are most certainly going to make this country something akin to hell on earth. That's what is important in this context.
John said...
I've never understood the concept of "Secular Judaism".
It would be more accurate to say an "ethnic Jew." The Nazis saw Jews as a separate and inferior race and would have drawn no distinctions between Sanders and a Hasidic rabbi or St. Edith Stein, who was a Jewish convert to Catholicism who became a nun. Nun, rabbi, atheist - all were sent to the gas chambers.
This is what I don't get about ethnic Jews who do not believe in the faith of their forebears but still bemoan the fact that Jewish intermarriage is so high. (One of the best quips I've seen about Trump's supposed "anti-Semitism" comes from a conservative Jew: "Unlike liberal Jews, Trump has Jewish grandchildren."
Jews have survived as a people because they were so fiercely devoted to their religion they fled or practiced the faith in secret or under harsh persecution rather than convert. Once the faith is forgotten and Jewishness becomes simply a matter of turning up at the synagogue 3 times a year, eating lox and bagels, and dropping Yiddishisms into ones speech, what compelling reason do Jews have for not intermarrying? It becomes just another ethnicity, like being Italian or Irish American, not something precious that needs to be transmitted to future generations.
Eli Weisel noted with dismay that much of American Jewish identity is centered on Holocaust remembrance. Obviously Weisel wanted the victims to be remembered, but he bemoaned the fact that remembrance had become a substitute for actual belief.
Sunsong asks, somewhat disingenuously If Trump were to take heed of his lying and corruption and change that would be good for him, don't you think?
If you were to take your head out of your ass it would be good for you.
Robert Cook How about if he is in a position to write legislation or administer public policy that would be discriminatory or otherwise harmful to you? A person lacking in sense and discretion such that he would declare his religious beliefs so bluntly might also lack the restraint and probity to abide by his responsibility to serve all citizens equally.
Do you not understand that this is at LEAST as much a condemnation of Sanders and yourself as Vought? Stop, think! Reflect!
(One of the best quips I've seen about Trump's supposed "anti-Semitism" comes from a conservative Jew: "Unlike liberal Jews, Trump has Jewish grandchildren."
My database consultant was raised Reform/secular Jewish, & in his riper years is becoming much more serious about his faith. He is trying as best he can to bring up his two daughters in the faith. You know who's his primary opponent in this effort?
His Jewish (now ex-) wife. She is implacably hostile to the Jewish faith, & wants her girls to have nothing to do with it.
He finds it strange when we talk over lunch at the deli that I, a Catholic, am so supportive of his efforts. Hells bells, how can one not support a parent who wants to teach his children about their heritage?
The problem... is...his lack of discretion, good manners, and simple common sense in making the statement publicly. It's an open insult to millions of American citizens. This raises questions about his good judgment
-Robert Cook, explaining why we should question the good judgment of someone who has the poor manners and lack of common sense to openly insult millions of American citizens.
few Americans read. We are a nation of blind idiot children. But then, are we different from people in other nations? We're all just animals stumbling and flailing fearfully in an indifferent cosmos, led by fools and lunatics, worshipping and fighting over phantasms.
-Robert Cook, half an hour earlier.
Mockturtle, sunsong quoted Wonder Woman in this thread. Truly, there's the sign of a Deep Thinker, quoting Dostoevsky and Wonder Woman.
I doubt very much the birdbrain ever read "The Brothers Karamazov." She googled "love+quotes" and copied and pasted the ones that sounded nice to her. Dostoevsky, Wonder Woman, what's the diff?
Sunsong's head is stuffed with vapid bumper sticker, Hallmark card cliches.
Most of the Jews I know--including my sister and BIL--are JINOs. My sister lights the menorah at Hanukkah and observes a few other rituals but there is no belief there. I do send a Hanukkah card as well as a Christmas card. It is interesting to note that the orthodox Jews I know are all young and are the offspring of Reform parents.
Human beings are all pretty much the same everywhere, so I think you'll find that most Muslims are about as lacking in familiarity with the Quran and as absent of literal and zealous belief in Islam's precepts as are most Christians.
And I think you are wrong. In most Muslim countries, education is based around reading and memorizing the Koran. (similar to the way many Christians used to use the Bible to learn to read and write) Plus Islam is much more a part of everyday life, especially the praying five times a day, everyday.
And, you assume that even practicing Muslims conversant in Islamic theology hold universally to one doctrinal belief system.
Well there is the Sunni/Shia split. Any other form of split is seen as apostasy, and usually punished by death.
Do you hold the same assumption about all Christians? Of course not.
Prior to the Reformation (with the exception of the Eastern Orthodox Churches) I would.
Robert Cook said...
"Why should unbelievers care if they are called 'condemned' by a God in whom they do not believe? A Muslim can call me an 'infidel' till the cows come home and it wouldn't bother me one bit. But if he tries to kill me, I take umbrage."
How about if he is in a position to write legislation or administer public policy that would be discriminatory or otherwise harmful to you? A person lacking in sense and discretion such that he would declare his religious beliefs so bluntly might also lack the restraint and probity to abide by his responsibility to serve all citizens equally.
And this is exactly why Article VI, Section 3 says "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
Mr. Cook's position seems to be that should anyone ever declare religious beliefs "so bluntly" [i.e. in public, where someone else can hear them] their qualifications for office are suspect.
The fact that it's not patently clear to Mr. Cook how his line of reasoning could be turned around on any belief, regardless which subset of people holds those beliefs, is telling. To demonstrate...If an "unbeliever" were the one being questioned, what if a Senator questioned the unbeliever on his religious beliefs, to which the unbeliever responds with some statement of unbelief in any God, hell, condemnation or otherwise. To which the Senator responds, "What if this unbeliever is in a position to write legislation or administer public policy that would be discriminatory or otherwise harmful to believers? An unbeliever lacking in sense and discretion such that he would declare his anti-religious beliefs so bluntly might also lack the restraint and probity to abide by his responsibility to serve all citizens equally."
{For side-topic funsies, substitute a discussion on climate change/global warming for belief/unbelief}
It is interesting to note that the orthodox Jews I know are all young and are the offspring of Reform parents.
6/11/17, 12:13 PM
Just as the attendees of a traditional Tridentine ("Latin" Mass) I sometimes go to include quite a few people who are far too young to remember the pre-Vatican II Church. I realize you take a dim view of the Catholic church, mock, but to me it's a heartening sign that there are young people who are looking for something deeper and more profound than Fr. Social Justice Warrior preaching leftist politics in a 1970's church that has no more spiritual feeling than an airport concourse.
How do you know that all Muslims want to "destroy/eliminate unbelievers from the earth?"
I have read translations of the Koran and listened to Imams and Mullahs preach.
I don't know that to be true at all.
And yet you disbelieve those who do know.
And what "American values?" We are and have been since our beginning a violent and aggressive people, internally and externally.
The United States is the most forgiving and charitable nation on Earth. are we perfect? Nope...but we miles better than everyone else....which is why everyone else is dying to get here, and we are the first place people turn to when they are in trouble.
There's a good podcast on this question of worshiping the "same God" and the controversy at Wheaton:
https://hiphination.org/episodes/episode-4-the-name-of-god-feb-14-2017/
"Human beings are all pretty much the same everywhere, so I think you'll find that most Muslims are about as lacking in familiarity with the Quran and as absent of literal and zealous belief in Islam's precepts as are most Christians.
Gahrie replies: And I think you are wrong. In most Muslim countries, education is based around reading and memorizing the Koran. (similar to the way many Christians used to use the Bible to learn to read and write) Plus Islam is much more a part of everyday life, especially the praying five times a day, everyday."
Gahrie is right.
Secular leftists are cultural imperialists. Because they do not take religion seriously themselves, they imagine that other people don't either. Except of course, for those awful Christians.
Camille Paglia (an atheist) has said that Western secular ignorance of the power of the religious impulse is a very dangerous thing.
40% don't believe in hell? That explains 2Chainz and the Kardashians, tattoos and child abuse, the welfare state and gun violence. No consequences. Cool. Reason.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[i] and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the republicans doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
"It doesn't matter what the Quran says. How many self-identified Christians have ever read the Bible from start to end, or even partially? Of those, how many believe it literally? How many accept and actively practice every one of its precepts? How many accept it "in general" or "in principle," but ignore those aspects of it that conflict with modern sensibilities or their own personal beliefs? (And, when we speak of Christians, do we mean those who are familiar with and adhere to the whole Bible, or just adherents of the New Testament? The Old Testament, after all, has nothing to do with Christianity, except, perhaps, that it can be considered the "prequel" to the story of Christ. And what about the books of the Bible that have been excluded from the "authorized" publication?)
Human beings are all pretty much the same everywhere, so I think you'll find that most Muslims are about as lacking in familiarity with the Quran""
You're assuming the two religions are in the same place in their development which is emphatically untrue. 200 years ago, children often learned to read from the Bible and it was the book most likely to be found in Christian homes. Most literate people had considerable familiarity with the contents of the Bible.
Oh poop, while I was hunting and pecking Gahrie made the same point more succinctly.
At least I didn't quote Wonder Woman.
I'm not at all surprised that Winner Reality had a deep admiration for radical Islam.
You should read this piece from Belmont Club.
On the American side of the Atlantic, Rukmini Callimachi has a long piece in the New York Times describing how a "lonely" American girl was gradually converted to Islam by an ISIS interlocutor on the Internet. "Alex, a 23-year-old Sunday school teacher and babysitter, was trembling with excitement the day she told her Twitter followers that she had converted to Islam."
The only Muslims she knew were those she had met online, and he encouraged her to keep it that way, arguing that Muslims are persecuted in the United States. She could be labeled a terrorist, he warned, and for now it was best for her to keep her conversion secret, even from her family.
So on his guidance, Alex began leading a double life. She kept teaching at her church, but her truck’s radio was no longer tuned to the Christian hits on K-LOVE. Instead, she hummed along with the ISIS anthems blasting out of her turquoise iPhone, and began daydreaming about what life with the militants might be like.
“I felt like I was betraying God and Christianity,” said Alex, who spoke on the condition that she be identified only by a pseudonym she uses online. “But I also felt excited because I had made a lot of new friends.”
The NYT article calls the process enticing the lonely. The other phrase for it is filling the emptied. "She felt as if she finally had something to do," Callimachi wrote.
It explains a lot. Probably Reality, too.
Yes, a lot of this type of behavior can be chalked up to youthful indiscretion but it's scary to think our military is made up of these people.
"Are not even the republicans doing that?"
Sunsong either deliberately altered the quote or she is under the impression that the GOP existed in ancient Palestine.
Its rather humorous that a secular Jew like Sanders can attack a Nominee for his Christian beliefs and no one really cares that much.
But if a Christian Senator was to subject an observant Jewish Nominee to the same type questions all hell would break lose - and we'd hear everyone from Althouse to Zuckerberg screaming for the Senator's head.
LOL.
"Are not even the republicans doing that?"
Sunsong either deliberately altered the quote or she is under the impression that the GOP existed in ancient Palestine.
LOL! And the Pharisees asked Jesus why he ate with 'republicans' and sinners.
Sunsong, et al: There is a big difference between loving one's enemies and embracing their ideas.
If there were a religious test, it should certainly exclude Bernie Sanders, or any other State cultist.
"I understand you are a Christian," Sanders said, raising his voice. The senator is Jewish and has said he's not particularly religious. "But there are other people who have different religions in this country and around the world. In your judgment, do you think that people who are not Christians are going to be condemned?"
That's actually a stupid question.
What do other religions believe?
Why single out Christians?
What does Sanders' religion believe since they are the Chosen people?
My response is We will find out at some point!
Or what an odd question coming from a Jew.
That would have been a fun response!
Angel-Dyne said...
Fernandinande: So, Angel-Dyne, no examples?
Nothing but examples from personal experience, which consist of people expressing offense at other people thinking they're going to hell.
Well, that would be offensive if they believed in hell. Do/did they?
Quite conveniently those people have never posted those sentiments on any blogs, etc.
Sanders does indeed seem very butthurt about this point of standard Christian doctrine. Insisting that someone who believes in standard Christian doctrine is unfit for public office in the United States seems pretty butthurt to me.
He's just playing politics. They're both jerks, Sanders because of his socialism, which is worse than religion because it's directed toward the real world rather than some fantasy land, and the other guy because of his silly self-aggrandizing beliefs about a fantasy land.
Why are you so butthurt about this?
Dishonesty doesn't suit you.
exiledonmainstreet said...
In college, an atheist acquaintance of mine got very indignant when a street preacher told him he was going to hell. It was amusing.
Thanks for an example, even if it was a college kid.
Robert Cook said...
Someone: "A real atheist doesn't just disbelieve, but insists that God doesn't exist."
I fail to see the distinction you're trying to make.
He's just pretending that not believing in his superstitions is a religion in itself.
Is there such a thing an atheist who is not a "real atheist?"
I used the term "real atheist" sarcastically because people here were calling Sanders an atheist and he says he's not an atheist. It's not a "real Scotsman" thing.
And what "American values?" We are and have been since our beginning a violent and aggressive people, internally and externally.
You seriously cannot be arguing we were the only ones. That that is uniquely American.
The natives did not live like Dances with Wolves.
lololol.
I really do have to read "1491."
"Why are you so butthurt about this?"
Seriously, F, why so butthurt? Angel-D's original comment was about "non-believers", that is, (I assume) anyone not buying into the believer's world view. That includes a much wider group than just "atheists", which is what you took it as meaning. The fact that Sanders isn't a self-proclaimed "atheist" doesn't negate the observation.
Speaking as a non-believer, you seem awfully wound up about this. "Oh noes! Somebody is defaming atheists! Super-Atheist to the rescue!"
Yes, I should think a true atheist would react to such an allegation with detached amusement.
Trump's border patrol should ask immigrants and refugees this question before being allowed entry. Ha!
LOL! And the Pharisees asked Jesus why he ate with 'republicans' and sinners.
6/11/17, 1:28 PM
Sunsong probably thinks the Roman republicans were all about cutting off welfare payments to the plebes and defunding the Latium chapter of Planned Parenthood.
The Jesus problem is back. It started when the prophet from Galilee was first revealed to be the Son of God. That claim to authority attracts fire from every other known authority, be they secular authorities or running another religious authority.
The Red Chinese Party routinely attacks the new Chinese Christians to preserve the authority of the Party.
The entire Mohammedan Theology is based on one tenant denying that Prophet Jesus is the son of god ...because god has no son. Rabbinic Judaism reacts the same way to the Gospel.
Now this poor guy has discovered that all men everywhere do hate him for the name of Jesus. Welcome to the real world. But he did not take old Pontus Pilate's way out.
tradguy, do you mean 'tenet' by any chance? Or maybe Muhammed was just rent-seeking. ;-)
BTW, Jesus said we would be hated for his sake and warned: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household." Matthew 10. Please note that 'sword' is meant metaphorically.
Yet just last year, when Bernie was campaigning for the presidential nomination, he gave a speech at Liberty University; that's Jerry Falwell Jr.'s place. Go figure.
"Do you not understand that this is at LEAST as much a condemnation of Sanders and yourself as Vought?"
Is it? How? What statements has Sanders (or myself) made that would suggest we would possibly promote discriminatory legislation or policies?
"Note: in Christian belief, we are all condemned under God's law."
Yes, a twisted idea. Obviously created by a self-hating human being (or culture).
"What statements has Sanders (or myself) made that would suggest we would possibly promote discriminatory legislation or policies?"
"A person lacking in sense and discretion such that he would declare his religious beliefs so bluntly might also lack the restraint and probity to abide by his responsibility to serve all citizens equally."
It's possible you were just trying to yank people's chains with this comment. But if not, you appear to be an anti-religious bigot.
"That's an assertion, not an argument, and it's bullshit."
It's not an assertion, and it's not an argument, but a suggestion. Not bullshit at all, as discrimination of all types has been found in law and policy in our country.
"You're floundering around for an argument that believing Christians should be purged from the public square."
Nope. I assume most civil servants in America are Christians either by practice or tradition. I don't call for their expulsion from their jobs. But believing Christians who want to serve in the public square must put their religious tenets aside when dealing with matters of public law and policy. Most do; some may not.
"It's possible you were just trying to yank people's chains with this comment. But if not, you appear to be an anti-religious bigot."
Nope. That's your erroneous perception. And I wasn't trying to yank anyone's chain, but making a serious observation.
Gahrie: "Jews, Christians and Muslims all worship the same God, though they call him different names.... I don't understand why this is controversial."
It is not controversial among believers, because it is not true. It appears controversial among secularists and sippy cup Christians because of politics.
"Could someone please explain how this makes sense?"
How does any religious doctrine make sense, if meant to be taken as historical fact?
Fernandinande:
Well, that would be offensive if they believed in hell.
If they are, the offend-ees are being stupid and need to get over it.
Seriously, is this thread your first exposure to Christian eschatology? Protestants and Catholics don't believe the same things about salvation. Protestants don't agree with other Protestants about who gets saved. Even Catholics disagree about it among themselves, even though theoretically they're all supposed to be on the same page. Maybe you need a spell in your atheist safe space, snowflake. You're freaked andabout things I thought everybody knew.
Do/did they?
I specified "non-believers". (FYI, if you lose track of who said what you can always clarify with Ctrl-F.) You know, the people you're so hysterically adamant never, ever take offense at such things.
Btw, as Paco has tried to point out to you, whether Sanders is or is not an atheist isn't really relevant to the criticisms here of his behavior. If you weren't in a state of deep hysterical butthurt over some perceived non-adulatory evaluation of the behavior of some* non-believers, that would be obvious to you.
(*Got that, Fern? *Some*. You have gone full-Inga over an assertion that *some* non-believers somewhere have behaved stupidly. What's up with that?)
Regarding my supposition that most Muslims are no more devout or familiar with their relgion's tenets than are most Christians:
"And I think you are wrong. In most Muslim countries, education is based around reading and memorizing the Koran. (similar to the way many Christians used to use the Bible to learn to read and write) Plus Islam is much more a part of everyday life, especially the praying five times a day, everyday."
Many Islamic extremists are, in fact, quite ignorant of of the Quran and the tenets of their religion.
Islamic extremist movements are largely political in nature, not religious. However, those engineering these movements use appeals to Muslim identity and theology to support their actions and to entice the young and ignorant to blow themselves up for Mohammed.
Robert Cook: Is it? How? What statements has Sanders (or myself) made that would suggest we would possibly promote discriminatory legislation or policies?
What you've said here (and what Sanders said) provides at least as much "suggestion" that you and he would discriminate against believers, as anything Vought said "suggests" that he would discriminate against non-believers.
Robert Cook said...
'I wonder how sanguine the commenters criticizing Sanders would be if a Muslim candidate for a federal position publicly asserted that Christians, not being believers in Allah or followers of the Quran, therefore "stand condemned."'
Muslims do believe that and do assert it publicly. Why should we care what they believe and say?
Your problem, Cook, like others with their feet planted firmly in the air of secularism, is that your assessment of religion is based on philosophical materialism combined with ignorance.
""And what "American values?" We are and have been since our beginning a violent and aggressive people, internally and externally.'
"You seriously cannot be arguing we were the only ones. That that is uniquely American."
Not at all, quite the contrary. However, most Americans believe we are exceptionally good and kind and peaceful and just. How silly. We are as savage and murderous as any humans who have lived anywhere.
"What you've said here (and what Sanders said) provides at least as much 'suggestion' that you and he would discriminate against believers, as anything Vought said 'suggests' that he would discriminate against non-believers."
Again, I ask: How so?
Robert Cook: I wonder how sanguine the commenters criticizing Sanders would be if a Muslim candidate for a federal position publicly asserted that Christians, not being believers in Allah or followers of the Quran, therefore "stand condemned."
If by "sanguine", you mean "duh", than yes I'd be "sanguine" about a believing Muslim professing to believe what believing Muslims believe about salvation and damnation. Muslims believe in hell, right? Somebody must get sent to hell, then, and I assume who gets sent probably has something to do with their beliefs as well as their actions. If they don't, well, all the same to me. As I said, duh.
You're projecting your own presumptions onto others. Not everybody, including every non-believer, is as freaked out as you are by the fact that human beings have religious beliefs, some of which have to do with matters of redemption and damnation.
"A person ... that ... would declare his religious beliefs ... might also lack the restraint and probity ... to serve all citizens equally."
And what do you base this "might" upon?
If you can't see how prejudiced – not to mention how deeply inimical to the Constitution – this sentiment is, I don't know how to help you. "Better not put that Jewish guy in charge of the treasury; you know how those people are about money!"
I wouldn't vote for him either. There is something off in the judgment and reasoning of someone who thinks people of faith who don't believe in Jesus are going to hell to the point that he's wiling to make public pronouncements about it.
We are as savage and murderous as any humans who have lived anywhere.
A twisted idea. Obviously created by a self-hating human being.
Again, I ask: How so?
You "suggest" that Vought's belief in what happens in the world to come makes him unfit for public office because he would "discriminate" against people he believes will be condemned by God.
Where's your evidence for this? You have none, but your own prejudice and vague hand-waving about his alleged inability to "not discriminate". On the other hand, Sanders does want to shut this guy out from holding public office, based on his own (entirely unevidenced) beliefs about religious believers, and you're defending him.
How does declaring people unfit for office because of their (very very common religious beliefs) not suggest that you would discriminate against religious believers? You're defending the guy who is straight-up insisting that we should discriminate against this religious believer, because of beliefs that having to do with the office for which he is seeking appointment, yet having fits about the the entirely hypothetical and unevidenced potential "discriminatory" behavior of the Christian.
I've noticed you've backed off from the huffing and puffing about the "bad manners" of people who give honest answers to questions about their religious beliefs. Among other things.
Robert Cook:
"The Pew Research Center recently found that nearly 60 percent of Americans surveyed believe in hell."
"This is a big part of our problem, right here"
The biggest part of our problems are how all leftist and islamist governments turn their nations into totalitarian hell holes, not that a stalinist like you would care.
Robert Cook wrote:
"How does any religious doctrine make sense, if meant to be taken as historical fact?"
What do you mean by "historical fact," Robert Cook? What do you think the past is?
Ann Althouse said...We'd be shunning an awful lot of people, and another matter that used to be considered part of religious freedom will have been relocated into the category of a social belief where it can be impugned without incurring the accusation that to impugn it is to discriminate based on religion.
Tough to avoid two cliches:
1.) Who's this "we" kemosabe? Your friends and fellow nice Left-centrists & Leftist have been working on this for the better part of 5 decades. Yeah, it's a problem! You folks won the culture war, though, so it seems a bit out of place to raise an objection to the obvious consequence of that victory.
2.) Welcome to the party, pal. [You're the cop. The dead body is the realization that this kind of shit will break the nation apart. The machine gun fire is the Left destroying another person or institution for wrongthink. I'm not John McClane--I'm probably one of those SWAT guys who show up later. Hey, they did their best!]
Easy response: "My Kingdom is not of this world."
I disagree with Vought's perspective on the Wheaton issue about whether Christian/Islam believe in the same God(and had a long series of posts about why), but it's pretty clear a standard understanding.
And it's also very clear that this country has had no end of people in all capacities of government have religious beliefs. Indeed, the religious beliefs of Wheaton's first president led him to be a radical abolitionist, using the same words about judgment against slave-owners.
Meanwhile, there's clearly a bias shown against certain types of religions and not others. Since not all religions have a distinct deity, religion as a whole really is more of a statement about human potentiality and what makes us thrive as people. Christianity orients this in the salvation of Jesus, but not all religions share similar views of divine salvation.
What's to say who is right about what makes a person truly thrive as a person? What brings fulfillment? Identity? Value? These are fundamentally religious statements as there's no fundamental proof about why one view on anthropology is better than another. But clearly there are different views on this, some which include a deity and some which do not. Dismissing such assertion merely because of belief in a deity privileges non-deistic religions and non-deistic anthropological assertions. Which is, of course, the point.
If religion is overly-narrowed in definition, then people can have religious beliefs while asserting these as simply rational and self-apparent, thus allowing them to control the civic dialogue as they negate other competing kinds of religions. Which is what much of the progressive movement is about.
mockturtle said...
Vance, the thief on the cross next to Jesus went to heaven, as Jesus pardoned him because of belief in Him. He wasn't baptized. I won't go into arguments against baptism for the dead.
6/11/17, 10:55 AM
I'm not sure I get your point here.
The thief wasn't baptized. And? Moses wasn't baptized either. Nor was Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, etc, etc, etc.
It seems to come as a surprise to many that Bernie is not a very thoughtful man.
Blogger exiledonmainstreet said...
It would be more accurate to say an "ethnic Jew."
Angel Dyne also touched on this.
How and when did Sanders' descendants come to the US? I don't know but have the impression it was at least several generations ago.
To say he is an "ethnic Jew" is like saying that I am "ethnic Irish" or German or Scots or the other ethnicitys I have bound in my DNA.
Maybe not even that since his ancestors are probably further from Israel than mine are from Ireland.
I know that there is a non-religious, ancestry, or whatever you want to call it background to someone like Sanders. It still seems like calling him Jewish (since he is non-religious) is like calling me Irish.
He seems to be an American, ethnically.
John Henry
"How and when did Sanders' descendants come to the US? I don't know but have the impression it was at least several generations ago."
Sanders has labeled himself the "Son of immigrants" and a "Polish-American" because his father came here in 1910.
So yeah, his family has been here for over 100 years, but Sanders still thinks of himself as a Polish-Jew fresh off the boat.
Eric, Vance made this statement earlier in the thread: I'm Mormon, and of course as such we believe in Jesus's statement that you have to be baptized to get into heaven.
And yet Jesus said to the believing thief, "Today you will be with me in Paradise".
My point being that baptism, while a show of faith, does not get you into heaven nor does the omission preclude your entry.
Lewis: "What do you mean by "historical fact," Robert Cook? What do you think the past is?"
In Roberts defense here, as a Marxist he never really "knows" what the "past" is until it is rewritten that day to satisfy whatever the latest lefty narrative for today happens to be.
the "past" is until it is rewritten that day
It's a liberal work of art, that evolves left, right, and center, following a set of principals, rather than principles.
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