Christo-fascists harass High School Student

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NeantHumain
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25 Jan 2012, 11:46 pm

GoonSquad wrote:
I live in the south and I work for a gay guy, so I know a bit about southern politics... Race is still a small factor, as is gay rights and abortion, but religion bashing is much more inflammatory (it makes MORE people MORE angry).

At any rate, the BIGGEST difference between gay rights and abortion rights and jesus bashing is that furthering gay rights and abortion rights actually improves peoples lives. That's worth doing. That's worth the price.

Generally, jesus bashing just causes a lot of ill will (mostly directed toward the left) for questionable benefit.

Who benefited in a real way, from this incident? Nobody.

And, in the long term, this DOES alienate people and it NEEDLESSLY hurts Progressive progress.

Fight the good fight, fight the smart fight,do not fight every fight.

Actually, defending the separation between Church and State is pretty important on principle, and I don't really see the point of sacrificing it for a few more Democratic votes in the South. There is a subset of religious folks who see it as holy duty to turn every possible place and occasion into a chance to "praise the Lord," and they feel any pushback whatsoever against this is the most awful persecution of their faith since the Romans fed Christians to the lions in the Colosseum. The fact is symbols matter; principles matter. A banner praising Jesus in a public school gymnasium stamps their religion across a public education system. There are plenty of places that are not publicly owned where they can practice their religion perfectly freely, but they have no right to impose this symbolic acknowledgement of their religion over the whole public like this. Such a banner sends a message that, even the State, which supposedly exists to protect the freedom of individuals, endorses one religion over others. This is wrong and unconstitutional.

Secularism is not the problem. Democrats have had a problem with "optics." Conservatives have a juggernaut of pundits, syndicated talk-radio hosts, and a whole cable news network devoted to fanning the flames of indignation for Republican political gain. Secularism benefits the white working-class Christian Southerner as much as it does the upper middle-class, urban, liberal agnostic. One need only look back to history to see a litany of religiously motivated wars or even today with terrorism. Secularism respects the individual's right to believe what they want without feeling like second-class citizens (or worse) for not accepting the majority faith.

"Cultural" issues like this are not mere wedge issues that progressives should back away from, ceding yet more ground to social conservatives. Liberals should aggressively message the virtues of ideals like secularism and how they do no harm and often bolster the liberty of even the comfortable majority.



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25 Jan 2012, 11:53 pm

NeantHumain, on the basis of your experience, are abortion and gay rights non-issues with religious conservatives as GoonSquad is claiming. Not that I think your anecdotal evidence would trump his anecdotal evidence, but it'd be interesting nonetheless.


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25 Jan 2012, 11:55 pm

Raptor wrote:
Maybe on your home planet of Tralfamadore but not where I live. It’s not the kind of thing that this conservative would lose sleep over, anyway. Even if socialism is the flavor of the week that does not necessarily define the future of this nation.
****CAPITALISM**** There, I said it.


Now that you've said it, please inform Frank Luntz that you think it's a winning political strategy to not back away from the word. 'cause he apparently disagrees.


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26 Jan 2012, 12:00 am

Raptor wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Quote:
Well, your Republican friends are scared s**tless. In fact, they are so afraid to use the word capitalism that they fall back to calling it free enterprise.

Maybe on your home planet of Tralfamadore but not where I live. It’s not the kind of thing that this conservative would lose sleep over, anyway. Even if socialism is the flavor of the week that does not necessarily define the future of this nation.
****CAPITALISM**** There, I said it.

Quote:
And while it's true that churches are all over this country, despite what evangelicals like telling themselves, most are Mainline denominations who aren't obsessed with right wind secular politics.

No, but most of them won’t put up with having their religion and their savior attacked in the name of progress for long, either. Not at the polls, anyway.
That’s what the gist of my reply was in response to if you’d read it.
Go ahead and come back with something, though. I know you can’t rest until you do.
:roll: :roll:


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TheKing
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26 Jan 2012, 12:01 am

91 wrote:
Master_Pedant wrote:
Christian zealotry = death threats
Atheist "zealotry" = not wanting explicitly religious displays in public schools

F*ck, you're anti-atheist bigotry really is starting to show.


Atheism and Violence, Post-Enlightenment, Cambridge University:

"Despite Dawkins' protestations there does seem to be a case for finding a connection between atheist tyrannies and the atheism of the doctrines they apply; this is the case both for Marxism and for the influence of Nietzsche on the intellectual justification of Nazism."

"The biologically reductionist picture of human nature which Dawkins, Dennett and others present to us does not seem to provide us with any particularly good reason to suppose that morality will develop towards greater perfection and a diminution of violence, or even for why humanity should develop in this direction."

abacacus wrote:
Do you also support people making racist or homophobic rants on the streets? Or anti-Semitic?


Sure, as long as they are not violent.


how does Nietzsche link to Nazism? it was Martin Luther's idea to exterminate Jews as expressed in his book Jews and the Lies They Tell, that sounds more down Hitler's alley than Christianity has failed and the last true Christian died on the cross as Nietzsche believed, that's what he meant when he said "God is Dead" that Christianity has failed in its goal to teach morals and frankly Nietzsche is being proven right by the Christian response to a girl defending the Constitution like she should be


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26 Jan 2012, 12:05 am

Master_Pedant wrote:
Raptor wrote:
Maybe on your home planet of Tralfamadore but not where I live. It’s not the kind of thing that this conservative would lose sleep over, anyway. Even if socialism is the flavor of the week that does not necessarily define the future of this nation.
****CAPITALISM**** There, I said it.


Now that you've said it, please inform Frank Luntz that you think it's a winning political strategy to not back away from the word. 'cause he apparently disagrees.


Frank Luntz is a Tralfamadorian, too.



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26 Jan 2012, 12:07 am

TheKing wrote:
91 wrote:
Master_Pedant wrote:
Christian zealotry = death threats
Atheist "zealotry" = not wanting explicitly religious displays in public schools

F*ck, you're anti-atheist bigotry really is starting to show.


Atheism and Violence, Post-Enlightenment, Cambridge University:

"Despite Dawkins' protestations there does seem to be a case for finding a connection between atheist tyrannies and the atheism of the doctrines they apply; this is the case both for Marxism and for the influence of Nietzsche on the intellectual justification of Nazism."

"The biologically reductionist picture of human nature which Dawkins, Dennett and others present to us does not seem to provide us with any particularly good reason to suppose that morality will develop towards greater perfection and a diminution of violence, or even for why humanity should develop in this direction."

abacacus wrote:
Do you also support people making racist or homophobic rants on the streets? Or anti-Semitic?


Sure, as long as they are not violent.


how does Nietzsche link to Nazism? it was Martin Luther's idea to exterminate Jews as expressed in his book Jews and the Lies They Tell, that sounds more down Hitler's alley than Christianity has failed and the last true Christian died on the cross as Nietzsche believed, that's what he meant when he said "God is Dead" that Christianity has failed in its goal to teach morals and frankly Nietzsche is being proven right by the Christian response to a girl defending the Constitution like she should be


Luther didn't preach that all the Jews should be killed; but yes, unfortunately, at the end of his life, his deteriorating physical health had taken such a toll on his mental health that he lashed out with intemperate abuse at several targets, including the Jews.
The fact also remains, Luther's Antisemitic writings had virtually been forgotten, till they were rediscovered by the Nazis, making it rather impossible that Luther had led the way for Hitler, despite what Antisemites today like to claim.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer



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26 Jan 2012, 12:09 am

Raptor wrote:
Master_Pedant wrote:
Raptor wrote:
Maybe on your home planet of Tralfamadore but not where I live. It’s not the kind of thing that this conservative would lose sleep over, anyway. Even if socialism is the flavor of the week that does not necessarily define the future of this nation.
****CAPITALISM**** There, I said it.


Now that you've said it, please inform Frank Luntz that you think it's a winning political strategy to not back away from the word. 'cause he apparently disagrees.


Frank Luntz is a Tralfamadorian, too.


Just out of interest, do you read Vonnegut?

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer



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26 Jan 2012, 12:19 am

abacacus wrote:
However, it *is* true that religious people do so far more often.

As far as christians being oppressed, you mean like how christians oppress homosexuals?


As to your first statement. It may be true, not all religion is good and some of it is very dangerous. Pretty much any philosophy or ideology risks the same (though I am far less worried about fundamentalist Quakers).

As to Christians who oppress homosexuals. I agree when Christians oppress homosexuals they are wrong too. Let he who is free of sin, cast the first stone.


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26 Jan 2012, 2:47 am

Master_Pedant wrote:
NeantHumain, on the basis of your experience, are abortion and gay rights non-issues with religious conservatives as GoonSquad is claiming. Not that I think your anecdotal evidence would trump his anecdotal evidence, but it'd be interesting nonetheless.


Dude, you seem to have a reading comprehension problem. I NEVER claimed that gay rights and abortion are non-issues--to a certain entrenched, zealous fringe, THEY MOST CERTAINLY ARE.

However, there is a vast middle in the south who are nominally religious BUT DON'T REALLY CARE MUCH ABOUT GAY RIGHTS OR ABORTION.

These moderate, nominally religious people could be allies to the left on economic issues.

However, they become needlessly alienated by issues like the one in this thread.

They don't see this as some important separation of church and state issue. Remember, we aren't talking compulsory prayer, religious ceremonies at school, or the like. We are talking about one person raising a giant stink over a banner that could easily be ignored.

These moderate, nominally religious people see this as a petty, mean-spirited, purposeful attack on their culture, their values, and their way of life. These people aren't interested in proselytizing, they simply want same the tolerance and respect they are expected to give to every other group.

These people have economic interests best served by the left, but they are pushed to the right or just pushed out of the political process because of intolerance.
Quote:
In 2008 Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate in recent history to win an electoral college majority irrespective of his southern victories in North Carolina, Florida, and Virginia. However, the Blair-Rockefeller Poll reveals that Democrats could make additional inroads into the South by activating self-identified Democrats, particularly Latinos who report that they did not vote in the 2010 midterms. Though limiting the sample to southern Democrats who did not vote in 2010 clearly reduces the number of observations, the findings are still useful, particularly since the overall comparison reveals a shrinking gap between the South and the non-South on a host of issues. The largest categories of Southern Democrats who did not vote in 2010 are aged 30-44, women, Catholic (Baptist was a close second), and Latino. These non-voting Democrats in the South appear split on religious and socially conservative issues, with 45.6% reporting to be Biblical literalist, yet 36.6% (the largest response) are pro-choice. Perhaps most significantly, this subgroup shows no preference (neutral) on such major issues as health care and the economy (Table 5). If Democrats want to ensure competition in the South in 2012, they will have to find a way to energize this portion of their base, especially since the national sample (as shown in Table 2) reveal s a 5.2% gap in Democratic outreach between the South and the Non-South.

source: http://blairrockefellerpoll.uark.edu/5370.php

Let me say this one last time...

The unmitigated, unreasonable, unrelenting hostility of atheist zealots toward even the MOST BENIGN expressions of religion in the public sphere is silly, unhelpful, and people on the left WHO ACTUALLY GIVE A DAMN ABOUT PROGRESS AND NOT USELESS POLITICAL GAMES, should discourage this behavior.

IN SUM:

Gay rights and abortion are right-wing BASE ISSUES that many moderates in the south are relatively INDIFFERENT TO.

Zealous atheism is a left-wing BASE ISSUE that alienates moderates in the south who lean left on other issues.

If the left could muster up a little bit of tolerance, they could make significant gains in the south.

PS

On a side note, I'd like to add...

Here's what I actually posted in reference to your original comment.
GoonSquad wrote:


I live in the south and I work for a gay guy, so I know a bit about southern politics... Race is still a small factor, as is gay rights and abortion, but religion bashing is much more inflammatory (it makes MORE people MORE angry).

At any rate, the BIGGEST difference between gay rights and abortion rights and jesus bashing is that furthering gay rights and abortion rights actually improves peoples lives. That's worth doing. That's worth the price.

Generally, jesus bashing just causes a lot of ill will (mostly directed toward the left) for questionable benefit.

Who benefited in a real way, from this incident? Nobody.

And, in the long term, this DOES alienate people and it NEEDLESSLY hurts Progressive progress.

Fight the good fight, fight the smart fight,do not fight every fight.


Where did I ever say that gay rights and abortion aren't issues among religious conservatives?

I ignored your name calling at the start of our exchange and the way you've repeatedly mischaracterized my statements from other threads (except to make a few jokes), but this has exhausted my patients.

Obviously, you are not interested in having an honest debate, in good faith. I'm done with this topic, this thread, and I'm done interacting with you.


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TheKing
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26 Jan 2012, 12:50 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
TheKing wrote:
91 wrote:
Master_Pedant wrote:
Christian zealotry = death threats
Atheist "zealotry" = not wanting explicitly religious displays in public schools

F*ck, you're anti-atheist bigotry really is starting to show.


Atheism and Violence, Post-Enlightenment, Cambridge University:

"Despite Dawkins' protestations there does seem to be a case for finding a connection between atheist tyrannies and the atheism of the doctrines they apply; this is the case both for Marxism and for the influence of Nietzsche on the intellectual justification of Nazism."

"The biologically reductionist picture of human nature which Dawkins, Dennett and others present to us does not seem to provide us with any particularly good reason to suppose that morality will develop towards greater perfection and a diminution of violence, or even for why humanity should develop in this direction."

abacacus wrote:
Do you also support people making racist or homophobic rants on the streets? Or anti-Semitic?


Sure, as long as they are not violent.


how does Nietzsche link to Nazism? it was Martin Luther's idea to exterminate Jews as expressed in his book Jews and the Lies They Tell, that sounds more down Hitler's alley than Christianity has failed and the last true Christian died on the cross as Nietzsche believed, that's what he meant when he said "God is Dead" that Christianity has failed in its goal to teach morals and frankly Nietzsche is being proven right by the Christian response to a girl defending the Constitution like she should be


Luther didn't preach that all the Jews should be killed; but yes, unfortunately, at the end of his life, his deteriorating physical health had taken such a toll on his mental health that he lashed out with intemperate abuse at several targets, including the Jews.
The fact also remains, Luther's Antisemitic writings had virtually been forgotten, till they were rediscovered by the Nazis, making it rather impossible that Luther had led the way for Hitler, despite what Antisemites today like to claim.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer


my point is that Nietzsche wasnt antisemetic, and On the Jews and Their Lies(sorry for mistake earlier i was going off memory due to lack of time) was very influential on the Nazi's as far as im concerned Jews were just the scapegoat for Hitler to take power but he used that book a lot to get the people on his side, it was very popular in Nazi Germany


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27 Jan 2012, 11:10 am

GoonSquad wrote:
Master_Pedant wrote:
NeantHumain, on the basis of your experience, are abortion and gay rights non-issues with religious conservatives as GoonSquad is claiming. Not that I think your anecdotal evidence would trump his anecdotal evidence, but it'd be interesting nonetheless.


Dude, you seem to have a reading comprehension problem. I NEVER claimed that gay rights and abortion are non-issues--to a certain entrenched, zealous fringe, THEY MOST CERTAINLY ARE.

However, there is a vast middle in the south who are nominally religious BUT DON'T REALLY CARE MUCH ABOUT GAY RIGHTS OR ABORTION.

These moderate, nominally religious people could be allies to the left on economic issues.

However, they become needlessly alienated by issues like the one in this thread.

They don't see this as some important separation of church and state issue. Remember, we aren't talking compulsory prayer, religious ceremonies at school, or the like. We are talking about one person raising a giant stink over a banner that could easily be ignored.

These moderate, nominally religious people see this as a petty, mean-spirited, purposeful attack on their culture, their values, and their way of life. These people aren't interested in proselytizing, they simply want same the tolerance and respect they are expected to give to every other group.

These people have economic interests best served by the left, but they are pushed to the right or just pushed out of the political process because of intolerance.
Quote:
In 2008 Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate in recent history to win an electoral college majority irrespective of his southern victories in North Carolina, Florida, and Virginia. However, the Blair-Rockefeller Poll reveals that Democrats could make additional inroads into the South by activating self-identified Democrats, particularly Latinos who report that they did not vote in the 2010 midterms. Though limiting the sample to southern Democrats who did not vote in 2010 clearly reduces the number of observations, the findings are still useful, particularly since the overall comparison reveals a shrinking gap between the South and the non-South on a host of issues. The largest categories of Southern Democrats who did not vote in 2010 are aged 30-44, women, Catholic (Baptist was a close second), and Latino. These non-voting Democrats in the South appear split on religious and socially conservative issues, with 45.6% reporting to be Biblical literalist, yet 36.6% (the largest response) are pro-choice. Perhaps most significantly, this subgroup shows no preference (neutral) on such major issues as health care and the economy (Table 5). If Democrats want to ensure competition in the South in 2012, they will have to find a way to energize this portion of their base, especially since the national sample (as shown in Table 2) reveal s a 5.2% gap in Democratic outreach between the South and the Non-South.

source: http://blairrockefellerpoll.uark.edu/5370.php

Let me say this one last time...

The unmitigated, unreasonable, unrelenting hostility of atheist zealots toward even the MOST BENIGN expressions of religion in the public sphere is silly, unhelpful, and people on the left WHO ACTUALLY GIVE A DAMN ABOUT PROGRESS AND NOT USELESS POLITICAL GAMES, should discourage this behavior.

IN SUM:

Gay rights and abortion are right-wing BASE ISSUES that many moderates in the south are relatively INDIFFERENT TO.

Zealous atheism is a left-wing BASE ISSUE that alienates moderates in the south who lean left on other issues.

If the left could muster up a little bit of tolerance, they could make significant gains in the south.

PS

On a side note, I'd like to add...

Here's what I actually posted in reference to your original comment.
GoonSquad wrote:


I live in the south and I work for a gay guy, so I know a bit about southern politics... Race is still a small factor, as is gay rights and abortion, but religion bashing is much more inflammatory (it makes MORE people MORE angry).

At any rate, the BIGGEST difference between gay rights and abortion rights and jesus bashing is that furthering gay rights and abortion rights actually improves peoples lives. That's worth doing. That's worth the price.

Generally, jesus bashing just causes a lot of ill will (mostly directed toward the left) for questionable benefit.

Who benefited in a real way, from this incident? Nobody.

And, in the long term, this DOES alienate people and it NEEDLESSLY hurts Progressive progress.

Fight the good fight, fight the smart fight,do not fight every fight.


Where did I ever say that gay rights and abortion aren't issues among religious conservatives?

I ignored your name calling at the start of our exchange and the way you've repeatedly mischaracterized my statements from other threads (except to make a few jokes), but this has exhausted my patients.

Obviously, you are not interested in having an honest debate, in good faith. I'm done with this topic, this thread, and I'm done interacting with you.


Wow, GoonSquad, thanks for this clear display of your mastery of de-escalation, diplomacy, tolerance, patient, and bridge-building you hammer in as necessary skills for the left. :roll:


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27 Jan 2012, 5:58 pm

Raptor wrote:
This is about a BANNER. Do you know what a banner is??? It does not qualify as cramming anything down anyone’s throat, brainwashing, or mandating the Christian religion. It is a banner and a banner only.

Oh sure.


If it was just a harmless banner, then you wouldn't seen the xtian status quo getting so desperate as to send death threats to her nor would there have been such an effort to put the banner in the school in the first place.


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27 Jan 2012, 6:11 pm

Sending death threats is kinda losing the whole point about Christianity. I mean, in a case like this, those idiots sending the threats should stop and consider, what would Jesus do?

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer



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28 Jan 2012, 12:33 am

Master_Pedant wrote:
NeantHumain, on the basis of your experience, are abortion and gay rights non-issues with religious conservatives as GoonSquad is claiming. Not that I think your anecdotal evidence would trump his anecdotal evidence, but it'd be interesting nonetheless.

I don't really spend much time discussing politics with religious conservatives, but I know abortion is important to conservative Catholics at least.



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28 Jan 2012, 12:57 am

GoonSquad wrote:
Let me say this one last time...

The unmitigated, unreasonable, unrelenting hostility of atheist zealots toward even the MOST BENIGN expressions of religion in the public sphere is silly, unhelpful, and people on the left WHO ACTUALLY GIVE A DAMN ABOUT PROGRESS AND NOT USELESS POLITICAL GAMES, should discourage this behavior.

IN SUM:

Gay rights and abortion are right-wing BASE ISSUES that many moderates in the south are relatively INDIFFERENT TO.

You see issues like the separation of Church and State, abortion as frivolous cultural issues that their respective activists should be silent on so that a coalition can be built around economic populism instead. Obviously they're pretty important to many and not some silly luxury. As an atheist, I find it deeply offensive that Christians are using public institutions to promote their religion and don't see the point of disregarding Constitutional principles to get a few more Southern Democratic votes. Gay couples don't really see things like gay marriage as frivolous issues either.

The South just happens to be out of step with the rest of the country on many things, and it really isn't acceptable that atheists and other religious minorities, gay people, and others should be treated as second-class citizens because of this. Also, it was right that liberals intervened in the South and forced desegregation even at the cost of Democratic votes. Principles matter.