Today's News | Christian Views
| Home | Community | WorldMagBlog | Commentary | Previous Posts | Podcasts | Contact Us | Subscribe |
On our turf
Experts say the threat of domestic terrorism is growing
FULL STORY
An 'urgency': Sensing threats to institutions of society, church leaders make declaration
Bitter pill: GOP senators swallow hard as judicial nominee David Hamilton is confirmed
Just friends: Obama’s Asia agenda steered clear of any tough talk on human rights abuses 
It’s Friday!
Today’s quote is from a statesman: “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”
All original content Copyright © 2009 WORLDmag.com and may not be reproduced without permission
Learn it! Speak it! Live it!
Bring Christmas to a child in need!
Click to Print
Include Comments
back to top63 Comments to “Whirled Views 11.14”
Sir Winston Churchill
Report comment to moderator
I am off to South Africa this morning, y’all have yourselves a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Report comment to moderator
Adios, Adios.
Report comment to moderator
1300 years of Middle Eastern history in 2 minutes and 2 seconds.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7718587.stm
Report comment to moderator
HOpe you have a blessed trip, Adios!
Report comment to moderator
Winston Churchill. Didja know his madre was an American gal?
I am still flummoxed about the “Gays Gone Wild” video from yesterday. How could anyone do such a thing to a sweet old grandma? Was she a “plant”?
I think that is quite likely, but the gay shouting bullies didnt have to take the bait, did they?
In terms of the whole Preserving Marriage movemt, that little video on YouTube will be the equivalent of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, no?
Report comment to moderator
Winston Churchill, I Googled it using a trick I learned from RPN this morning.
Have a good trip Adios, keep in touch.
Report comment to moderator
Buen Viaje Adios. In SA I understand they have Christmas in their summer months.
Just wouldnt seem right to sing carols in shorts and flip flops now, would it?
Report comment to moderator
Vaya con dios Adios.
Report comment to moderator
Today is Friday, which means tomorrow is “College Football Saturday”. ESPN’s “Game Day” coverage will be in Tallahassee, Florida for the Hampton Univ. vs Florida A&M match-up.
As promised, here is the “College Football Saturday” contest, where you pick the winners (not the score) of five games. The winner (which is announced each Monday) gets a warm, gooey, hot-off-the-campfire *digital* S’more. Good luck!
Minnesota (7-3) @ Wisconsin (5-5)
#17BYU (9-1) @ Air Force (8-2)
#25 South Carolina (7-3) @ #4 Florida (8-1)
#16 North Carolina (7-2) @ Maryland (6-3)
Cal (6-3) @ Oregon State (6-3)
The tiebreaker has been changed for this week since Tennessee has the week off. Instead I will feature a classic match-up.
Pick the winner and the score:
Notre Dame (5-4) @ Navy (6-3)
Go Irish!
Please have your picks in by 10 a.m. tomorrow morning.
Report comment to moderator
Circuit City… RIP?
Report comment to moderator
Blessings to Adios, as usual. Clever, Arcadia.
I was at a fund raising dinner last night and the woman sitting next to me kept having to get up to take phone calls. Her 21-year-old son was in Santa Barbara near Westmont College and evacuating. The last call was: “I love you. I’m not sure we’re going to make it out. Goodbye.”
Mom, and some of the rest of us, was in tears.
We prayed and I’m thankful I haven’t seen anything about deaths this morning. For those of you prayers–Willie and Michael.
In other, more peaceful news, while walking the dog around the lake yesterday I came upon a woman standing still and staring at a tree. Many bird watchers visit the park, and they’re always happy to share so the dog and I joined her.
All I noticed were glorious fire-colored, russet, yellow, and brown curling leaves. “What are we looking at?”
She looked a little sheepish. “I just like to stand here and watch the leaves fall off the trees.”
Ahh.
Even in northern California, we have some awe-inspiring leaves which tremble on the edge of a twig, shudder a second time and gently release. They slip into the cool morning air with a little flip, a flutter, a wave, and then glide softly to the meet the spikey green grass.
Stopping to breathe deeply and watch is a good idea.
God’s in his heaven; all’s right with the world.
Report comment to moderator
“Even in northern California, we have some awe-inspiring leaves which tremble on the edge of a twig, shudder a second time and gently release. They slip into the cool morning air with a little flip, a flutter, a wave, and then glide softly to the meet the spikey green grass.”
Nice word picture there, Michelle. Thanks.
Report comment to moderator
Navy over Notre Dame by a touchdown. Go Navy.
Report comment to moderator
Godspeed, Adios.
Report comment to moderator
I’m with Joe B.
Report comment to moderator
Michelle, Re: “watching the leaves fall”. I like that.
Belongs back on the “Little things to be thankful for” thread doesn’t it? In Annandale, when I saw leaves fall, I thought of raking and mulching. It wasn’t as much fun then as it was when Chuck was a kid and he would toss the dog (a pup) into a pile of leaves and he would run back to be tossed again. We forget little blessings.
I didn’t know there was a fire, but I Googled “Westmont College” using a trick RPN taught me, and found a link.
I expect they’re ok now, or we would have heard of it.
Report comment to moderator
South Carolina over Florida. Florida beat SC 17-16 in 2006 the year they won the national championship. They blocked a last minute field goal. Historically, the Gamecocks have found a way to lose in the last minutes of a game. Not tomorrow!
Report comment to moderator
#10 Anlir, I’ll go with
Minnesota over Wisconsin
BYU over Air Force (They’ll have to fly high – bad joke)
Florida over South Carolina
Maryland over North Carolina
Cal over Oregon State
and
Navy 21 over Notre Dame 17
Report comment to moderator
Minnesota
BYU
Florida
North Carolina
Oregon State
Notre Dame 14 Navy 21
Report comment to moderator
Anlir: Very glad that you are not taking any girlfriends shopping when important work needs to be done (The Weekly College Football Saturday Contest). You are a true patriot!
PS – Nice that ESPN Gameday is at Florida A&M. This is a great chance to catch some footage of their killer marching band. I’m sure they’ll be showcased.
OK, OK. Alright already. Here’s my picks.
Badgers best the Gophers (and take Paul Bunyan’s axe). Minn vs. Wisc is the longest running rivalry in Division I football
Mormons over the Zoomies
Gators rout the Gamecocks
Terps prevail at home over the Tar Heels
Golden Bears over the Beavers
Tiebreaker: Irish are too much for the Middies. 26-16
Report comment to moderator
Football picks:
Wisconsin
Air Force
Florida (sorry, Chas!)
North Carolina
Oregon State
Navy 24, Notre Dame 14
Report comment to moderator
Thanks for the salutaions everybody. I had to get my football picks in before I leave.
Sawgunner, I’m amazed that South Africa is so much like SD County and while we have opposite seasons we both do Christmas in flip flops and shorts
Anlir here ya go before I go:
Wisconsin over Minnesota
BYU barely over AF
Florida over SC
NC over Maryland
Cal over the Beavers (Oh please, oh please, oh please)
And Navy over the Irish 24-21, Hey it’s happened before!
Report comment to moderator
Wisconsin
BYU
Florida
North Carolina
Cal
Notre Dame 33 – Navy 21
Report comment to moderator
Wisconsin
AF
Florida
NC
Oregon St
Navy 27, ND 24
Report comment to moderator
Aren’t any top ten teams playing. What about Oklahoma and Texas Tech?
Report comment to moderator
Friends,
Let me inform you about the latest installment of my “rerun” of the debate between my friends Jim Babka (a moderate evangelical, President of Downsize DC, and the late great Harry Browne’s former press secretary) and Gregg Frazer (a hard evangelical, John MacArthur’s key man at TMC on history and poli sci).
Frazer’s post on Romans 13 illustrates something about which evangelicals should be concerned: the purity of the Bible’s message, uncorrupted by “culture.” Open your minds to the notion that America’s Founders in rebelling against Great Britain were wrong (actually sinned!) from a strict biblical perspective. As Frazer wrote:
That view –- based on what Romans 13 actually says — was the majority view throughout the history of the church up to that point. Jonathan Boucher and Samuel Seabury (for example) were prominent Anglican ministers who argued the traditional literal (and biblical) view of Romans 13 and against revolution.
….Regarding I Samuel 8…the primary point is that Israel rejected God as their king and that any human regime which follows will inherently be inferior. Second, a warning about kings is not equivalent to support for political liberty. Before this time, Israel was ruled by a series of judges and before that by Moses. All of them, like the first two kings to follow, were appointed by God – not expressions of political liberty. The reason rule by the kings would be worse was that they had rejected God – not because they would lose political liberty. They had no less political liberty under the kings than they did under Moses. In fact, they ended up with MORE “liberty” (in the libertarian sense) under the kings because the kings abandoned the Law of God which regulated every aspect of their lives! As Jonathan Boucher pointed out, God does not express concern about political liberty in the Bible. God is concerned about spiritual liberty – freedom from the bonds of sin.
Check it out: http://www.americancreation.blogspot.com/
Report comment to moderator
I gotta take my alma mater over Wisconsin, hoping against hope.
Don’t know a thing about the other contests.
Report comment to moderator
Kbells,
Most of the Top 10 schools are playing patsies this weekend. The picks would be very one-sided.
OU and Texas Tech square off next weekend.
Report comment to moderator
Kbells,
I try to pick games that are more difficult to predict. A 3-7 team playing a 9-1 teams is too easy to guess. I also take into account the regions (west coast, plains, mid-west, south, and east coast), conferences, rivalries, and finally, whether the school was in last week’s contest or not. I try not to put a school in the contest two weeks in a row if I can help it.
Report comment to moderator
All,
I have a post linking to “American Creation” that should be moderated sometime soon. [http://americancreation[dot]blogspot[dot]com] It’s caught up in the moderating queue. In the meantime, another contributors of ours makes a “Christian Nation” like argument but in a very innovative, non typical sense. Kristo Miettinen writes
To the common claim that the founders weren’t, by and large, Christian, because they were Unitarians, or whatever, my reply is to defend big-tent interpretations of Christianity, at least when we are acting as students of history, rather than engaging in sectarian squabbles. To the historian, the criteria that delimit Christianity must, of course, be different in detail than the criteria that delimit Buddhism, or Marxism, but they should be similarly loose and inclusive. Just as all Marxists are Marxists to anyone but a devout Marxist, so also anyone who attributes historical singularity to Christ (whether as redeemer of mankind, son of a unitary God, one person of a triune God, a member of the divine troika, seal of the prophets, resurrected worker of miracles, etc.) should be acknowledged, by any historian thinking in his capacity as a historian, to be a Christian, even if the historian happens also to be a strict sectarian Christian who denies the true Christianity of competing sects. By this standard, historically speaking, (whatever I think as an orthodox Lutheran), Arians, Nestorians, Mormons, etc., are all Christians for scholarly purposes of historical analysis.
http://tinyurl.com/65gzx6
He makes an apt point: In order to make a “political-theological” connection between American government and Christianity, one must define Christianity rather liberally to include all sorts of systems, for instance theological unitarianism or Mormonism, that is theologically unacceptable to most orthodox Trinitarian Christians.
Report comment to moderator
With the election over, I am proposing “Tame Tuesday” again. My suggestion is that those people who do not align (in a fairly significant way) with the majority at this web site take a day off from posting.
This will demonstrate to you that you can control your addiction.
If followed and developed for a while, it will demonstrate to everybody if my theory is true. My theory is that many conservative Christians define themselves and maintain their belief system by opposition to those who do not agree with them. In the opposite of such opposition, they will splinter and turn on each other and demonstrate the same negative behavior and taste for conflict.
If I am proven wrong, that won’t hurt anybody. If I am proven correct, I will feel smug, which will probably be bad for my character; if there is room for it to get worse.
Report comment to moderator
Nobody selected South Carolina over Florida. And I’m going to report Travis’ comment as offensive (#21).
On a lighter
note, Our local weather man spoke to our Lions Club about the long range forcast. He says it’s going to get cold on the east coast this weekend and stay that way until the middle of January. Then it will get back to normal for the rest of the winter.
As for out drout, no relief in sight. A high pressure ridge has been over us for a couple of years now, and we get periods of rain, but no real releaf for another six months at least.
Report comment to moderator
RN, I don’t have an addiction, I can quit any time I want.
As for turning on each other, if you think I have the nerve to go against Cameron, Mumsee, KarenO, etc. you need to rethink.
Report comment to moderator
There was a “gay” thread yesterday which irritated me for a number of reasons. I asked people to email me if they were perturbed by the behavior in that thread, specifically looking to hear from people who were conservative Christians who do not necessarily approve of homosexuality, but are bothered by much of the discourse they read here on the topic.
One person wrote to me; a person I “know” already on line; a person who fits the description I just made.
I will add that I have harped on the theme that many people are unwilling or unable to explain why they post. I will addd that a few people seem to produce the opposite effect than they think they are producing. Just as some people should have their car keys taken away when they are under the influence (of various things, such as alcohol, illegal drugs, prescription medications, drowsiness, etc.), perhaps some people should have their key to the modem removed from time to time, for their own good.
Also, as I get older, and I feel my faculties slipping, will I know when it is time for me to stop driving and to stop posting?
Will you?
Report comment to moderator
I hope no one gets too jealous if when I get my fifth s’more.
Minnesota (7-3) @ Wisconsin (5-5)
#17 BYU (9-1) @ Air Force (8-2)
#25 South Carolina (7-3) @ #4 Florida (8-1)
#16 North Carolina (7-2) @ Maryland (6-3)
Cal (6-3) @ Oregon State (6-3)
Tiebreaker:
Notre Dame (5-4) 27 @ Navy (6-3) 31 Go Navy!
Report comment to moderator
28, 29, Sorry, you’re right about the OU and Texas Tech game.
Report comment to moderator
Chas sez “Nobody selected South Carolina over Florida. And I’m going to report Travis’ comment as offensive (#21).”
Chas, you’ve said it before on multiple occasions: most of South Carolina’s problems tend to be offensive. And defensive too! {ducking}
Report comment to moderator
“He makes an apt point: In order to make a “political-theological” connection between American government and Christianity, one must define Christianity rather liberally to include all sorts of systems, for instance theological unitarianism or Mormonism, that is theologically unacceptable to most orthodox Trinitarian Christians”
Alternately, in order to assert that America is not a country founded on Christian principles and imbued with Christian values, one must confine Christianity narrowly to exclude any but the most orthodox and theologically sophisticated.
Incidentally Mormonism did not arise until a half century after the War for Independence. The threat represented by early Mormons massing in the frontier parts of the midwest and making noise about forming an independent country for themselves was noted by the federal government, but there were no positive contributions to the American experiment while its basic institutions were being tested and refined.
This seems to be the strawman that consumes so much of your time, Jon. With the exception of a few historical popularizers’ oversimplistic attempt to draw a straight line between twentieth century evangelicalism and the founding fathers, the compelling contention that America is a Christian nation that is generally advanced is supported by the overwhelming Christian influence in shaping the customs, morality, anthropology, and philosophical underpinnings of Western Europe and America during the time of America’s founding.
It is less important that many of the principle actors were theologically and doctrinally orthodox in all their thinking and writing, than that their thinking and acting arose from and are unintelligible without the shaping influence of Christianity in their lives.
Report comment to moderator
Thank you Ken. I often wonder whether I am tackling a strawman. However your comments on Mormonism are apt. Yes, as I noted to Victoria on an earlier thread, Mormons (and JWs) didn’t exist during the Founding era; they came later. However folks DID exist (folks who might be analogous to Mormons and JWs) who believed 1) in the Arian and Socinian (theologically unitarian) heresies AND 2) that the Bible was only partially inspired AND 3) that man’s reason (not the Bible) was the ultimate determiner of Truth AND 4) that most or all religions (including non-biblical ones) were valid ways to God AND 5) (finally) disbelieved in eternal damnation. Interestingly, they more often presented this theologically liberal, heretical belief system under the auspices of “Protestant Christianity” NOT “Deism.” These men were J. Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, G. Morris, Madison, Washington and other Founding Fathers. They are, I submit, too “key” to ignore or downplay. If you can’t incorporate those 5 key points into the understanding of “Christianity” then you cannot conclude that America had an authentically “Christian” Founding. If you CAN incorporate those 5 points into “Christianity” then, yes, America could be said to have had an authentically “Christian” Founding.
Am I still dealing in straw man territory?
Report comment to moderator
Jon: I have my doubts whether a Revolutionary era Maryland Catholic priest, if pressed, would even have regarded his Calvinist or Quaker or Deist counterpart from a Northern colony as “Christian”.
He certainly would not have allowed them to participate in ceremonies in his church. Heck, just today we have a WMB post about a priest refusing communion to heretics.
I am curious, are there any books about intra-”Christian” religious violence in or between the colonies during the colonial period?
Report comment to moderator
Arcadia,
I think there is an awful lot of writing and documentation in books about Intra-Christian violence in colonial America. For interest, I’d start with how the Quakers and the Baptists were treated in colonial America (in those colonies in which they were dissidents).
Report comment to moderator
It has been very wet today, as it’s been raining all day over here in NC (Fayetteville area). Running a 10k this morning in what used to be dirt but was mostly mud (and some wet clay) was an interesting experience. Is it raining in anyone else’s area at the moment?
In my opinion, taxes should be used for three things, whith perhaps a few exceptions.
1) National defense (military, intelligence, etc.)
2) Infrastructure (roads and such)
3) Political offices (money for state representatives, for example)
While there might be some exceptions, these are the main ones.
Cut out about 99% of everything else and taxes would drop exponentially, I’m sure.
Make It Man (if you see this post), not to start an argument, but you said the following on one of the threads concerning violence by gays: “I decry any taking of anyone’s life unless prescribed by law. All of us are worth of redemption in God’s eyes.
In your eyes, are there any exceptions to this?
I have posted my comments on this several times before, so you may remember them. My view is that “being Ehud” (in the book of Judges) and taking out an oppressive tyrant is permissible if they have killed, tortured, or otherwise harmed innocent people and continue to do so. If the tyrant has simply unjustly imprisoned innocent people, that would be more difficult to call for me, but I think that other forms of protest should be used until a person is actually harmed. For instance, if Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin and others had been assassinated, millions of innocent people might not have lost their lives.
That’s just my opinion.
Report comment to moderator
Chas,
I took a nap this afternoon (after two nights of very little sleep trying to meet a deadline), and I dreamed about you. I’m not sure who else in my dream was from the blog, but there were two or three people who were. We were all talking, and someone mentioned you had just bought a used i-Phone, and someone else said they hoped you knew to program it carefully lest the previous owners have access to your credit card numbers through finding out your PIN number, or something like that. (I know little about technology, so why I’d be imagining tech dangers for someone else in my dream, I don’t know.) Anyway, they decided to go back to your hotel room to warn you, and I decided to go with them since I wanted to meet you.
We got to the room and you and Elvera were sitting with the light off (in shadow). I wanted to tell the other people to turn the light on so I could see what you looked like, and also ask them to introduce us. Well, you talked in the dream, so I don’t know what you look like, but now I know what you sound like, and if I knew who the other WORLD bloggers were (I’m guessing TJ and Cameron), then I suppose I know what they look like!
Report comment to moderator
Rio,
How would you defend your third point? I think the Constitution supports your first two propositions at least within reason.
Also, are you referring to local, state, or federal taxes or a combination?
Report comment to moderator
Jon – 40
Actually you didn’t Jon – see my post Post 92. I reminded you of the dates, which didn’t coincide with your statement, therefore you didn’t know, I gave you the dates, etc., so you would know and avoid the mistake in the future.
Below is the LINK – POST 92
Light, bright, gay (and violent) II ?
Report comment to moderator
Well Victoria,
I’m appealing to the “group” to understand that on that post 92 I intended to convey the message that Mormonism and JWism are “analogous” to what the Arians & Socinians of James Madison’s day taught and that I was NOT trying to argue that Mormons and JWs existed during JM’s day. I think most folks here understand that I know enough about the history of religion in American (I am after all, a published scholar in this area) that I didn’t make the error of which you accuse me.
Report comment to moderator
Rio,
I am not a pacifist. Does that answer your question?
Report comment to moderator
Cheryl D — such a vivid dream! That’s funny.
It’s getting hot again in LA. They’re trying to set up an artificial outdoor ice rink in one of our nearby cities, but so far they can’t get the water to freeze.
Report comment to moderator
Jon
YOU WRITE:
“I’m appealing to the “group” to understand that on that post 92 I intended to…”
NO Jon, Post 92 is MY POST! LOL
YOU WRITE:
” I think most folks here understand that I know enough about the history of religion in American (I am after all, a published scholar in this area) that I didn’t make the error of which you accuse me.”
Jon, I couldn’t care how you characterize yourself – I have read enough of your posts to disagree with you strongly that you know very little about religion.
Report comment to moderator
PS cheryl: Was Chas president by chance?
Report comment to moderator
Victoria,
Whatever…nitpick away. When I first started reading your posts I thought you were Victoria Jackson of SNL. Now, I am convinced that you are the “God Warrior.”
http://tinyurl.com/35tqxl
Report comment to moderator
Cheryl, I don’t know how to use an iPhone. And Elvera wouldn’t let me turn the lights off even when we were engaged. So it was a wild dream. As for what I look like. Imagine a 5′11′ 165# ugly 78 yr old man who looks best when his avitar is postage stamp size. Age didn’t hurt me though; I never did look good. Elvera, though was nice looking as a young woman. Still the best looking one in adult IV.
I picture all the famale posters look like Megyn Kelly.
The South Carolina Gamecocks are playing basketball with the Jacksonville State Gamecocks. Interesting to me because I would have bet there was only one “Gamecocks”. And I didn’t know Jacksonville State was in Alabama. I wouldn’t be surprised now to discover there’s another “Boilermakers” somewhere.
The score is Gamecocks 58-Gamecocks 34. It isn’t fair, really.
Report comment to moderator
Jon,
You silly man – when will you learn when defeated not to name call, or is that part of your self characterization as well -
Report comment to moderator
Victoria,
I just found your myspace page. I’m going to see if I can add you as a “friend.”
http://tinyurl.com/5buol8
I’m sorry to hear about your daughter.
Report comment to moderator
Jon
I have never had a “myspace page” nor do I ever visit them – You certainly are building a vivid characterization of who you are!
Report comment to moderator
Again Victoria,
I offer you condolences on your loss.
Report comment to moderator
Cameron, I am referring to all taxes collectively. I’m not naïve enough to say “abolish taxes,” because some taxes are necessary.
As for the defense of my third point, I simply say this:
If the plot to assassinate Hitler that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was involved with had succeeded, how many lives could have been saved that Hitler would have had killed later. I’m not sure about that instance, though, because I’m not sure where in the time line of history Hitler perpetrated the Holocaust, WWII started, and Bonhoeffer’s plot was thought of. Theoretically, if a tyrant was committing violent crimes against innocent people and is about to start a war, by taking him out the person has both saved the people who would have been killed by the mass murderer and saved the lives of all the soldiers who would have died in the war.
This does not apply to a serial killer like Ted Bundy, because regardless of how much an individual would want to “mete out justice” themselves, that’s the job of the government.
In that case as well as in the first scenario it is preferable to capture the “evil one” and turn him in to the authorities to face the punishment the law deals out. However, while it’s possible to capture a killer on American soil and turn him in to the police, it’s quite another thing to infiltrate enemy territory and get back out with a captured prisoner, especially if he is the enemy leader. I can elaborate further on this point at a later time if further clarification is necessary, but I have things to do at the moment.
Make It Man, that doesn’t really answer my question, because although I have one friend who is a pacifist, most people I know are not, but they still might disagree with my views on this matter.
Report comment to moderator
Jon – 57
Not to burst your bubble but there is no loss – you aren’t talented in fiction either – LOL
Report comment to moderator
#32 Random,
I say you don’t post this ever again. No one cares about your idea of whack jobs not posting on any given day. Give it a rest. When another whack job wants to not post on a Tuesday – you can agree with them instead adn get your like minds to meld by osmosis
Report comment to moderator
Rio,
I’m slightly confused (it happens a lot)–your third point in 43 was 3) Political offices (money for state representatives, for example). I’m not sure how we got from there to debating the merits of state-sponsored assassination.
Report comment to moderator
Hey Only 50 people that Obama is looking at appointing were close friends and Clinton supporters. He will probably appoint Hillary as Sec of State just to get her out of the country and as far away from him as possible but I can’t believe he will appoint old Clinton retreads unless he is just so inexperienced he can’t see the nose on his face. Aren’t there any decent black wogs in the Dem party like Powell or Rice or Thomas he could at least interview?
Report comment to moderator
I think the arguments about whether the United States is a “Christian nation” or not are a bit silly.
Obviously, Christians had a lot to do with the founding of our country. An important Christian, Roger Williams, also had a lot to do with making us a country that provides for separation of church and state.
For these and many other reasons, I think that Christians and their beliefs should be taken seriously and treated with respect. On the other hand, if something makes sense it makes sense, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t (even if somebody a long time ago thought it did), and if it once made sense and no longer does, that is why we have elections and a Constitution that can be amended.
As for the idolatry about what a wonderful country it was and how it has been corrupted be secularism, or by all the immigrants coming in, and so on, that has a high quota of nonsense.
Our country was founded on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and ideals of liberty and it also was founded on the working bodies of indentured servents and African slaves and the buried bodies of Indians whose land we stole and who were victims of genocide. Our country was held together by one of the most horrible wars in history, the so-called “Civil War.” The claims that it was really a war of “states’ rights” and not a war of fighting to keep slaves just smell bad.
I simply disagree with people here on many facts and many values. We share some values and agree on some things. I am grateful that I was born here and live here instead of many other worse places.
I think the religious beliefs here are a myth, cobbled together as a mixture of some admirable behaviors and quite a bit of nonsense. I call Judeo-Christianity (awkwardly) a “virtuous swindle” in that it was an attempt to provide people with a positive way to live and a sense of hope in the face of the existential horror of our deaths that we all have to face and deal with.
There are a lot of platitudes and self-delusions here about how noble the history of Christianity is in comparison with the horrors of “atheistic Communism.” There’s not much good to be said about Communism (other there were some good intentions in its early roots before it went dreadfully awry), but not all atheists and secular people are Communists or monsters.
On the other side, much can be said in praise of Christianity, but it, too, has a lot of horror mixed into its history. Not only the Crusades, and the Inquisition, and the witch-burnings, and the wars of the Reformation and similar bad deeds (which many here are in serious denial about) but in the history of genocide. It’s not a fault just of Christians, but they are deeply implicated along with all the other “usual suspects.”
The cliche I have seen spouted here often has been that the body count of Communism was so much higher than the crimes committed in the Inquisition or the Crusades. That argument was silly right on the face of it, but an examination of the history of genocide shows that even in pre-industrial death dealing days, people were slaughterd by the millions, just by good old-fashioned hand work.
The other get out of jail card is “Those weren’t the ‘real’ Christians.” Well, I’m not a Christian, so I don’t appoint myself to the task of figuring out who the “real” Christians were.
It’s the task of all of us–religious believers and non-believers alike–to try and learn to treat each other decently and live together, no matter what good or bad things people using the labels did in the past.
I am deeply pessimistic about the future. Based on our past performance, we gain technology much faster than we gain wisdom, leaving us in the position of the small child in the attic finding an unlocked case full of loaded guns.
Report comment to moderator
back to topJoin The Conversation
You need to be a registered user of WORLDonTheWeb.com to "join the conversation."
If you are not a member yet, what are you waiting for? Register / Login Now!