Why do we allow these religious extremists to persist in this nation?

[Skidmore]

There is no effort to shout them down or force them out of the halls of power.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[The Stranger]

6. No, other moderate Christians (if there are any) need to call them out.

Instead, they quietly watch from the sidelines and pat themselves on the back for being "truer" Christians.

That would be a good start.

[nosillies]

11. You are VERY right.

I called out my kooky neighbors. They thought I was evil because I'm Methodist, not Baptist. I got my car egged. With eggs that someone had taken the time to draw Jesus's face on, no less. That was a long time ago, but I still laugh about it on a regular basis.

[3dman]

12. What

do you mean by "call them out"?

[The Stranger]

13. Speak out against them, debate them on the talk shows, publish articles,

letter-writing campaigns, issue sermons, hold public prayers, have marches, hold rallies, start parades, excommunicate them (if that counts for anything), say it from the pulpit, from the Sunday Schools, from the top of the Vatican to the Main Street Baptist Church, SHOUT IT FROM THE MOUNTAINTOPS!

(how's that?)

[3dman]

16. I don't know about you,

but I see plenty of that going on. Religious extremists act out, and it is almost always responded to. But just because you don't like what they have to say or represent, doesn't mean they don't have the right to do it.

[The Stranger]

21. You're right. You don't know about me.

But this isn't a question of their right to do it. Please stay with me now: This is a question of supposed Christians acting as war-mongering, hate-mongering, fear-mongering death cultists, and other Christians meekly looking the other way.

It isn't a question of whether I like what they have to say or represent, it is a question of them supposedly representing Christianity and specifically using it for their own devilish deeds.

I had thought for some reason that hate, war, torture, murder and death are antithetical to Christianity and to Christians. So, you see, it isn't a question of whether I like it or not.

[3dman]

23. Why do you need

Christians to fight your battles?

[The Stranger]

25. I guess it would be Christians fighting their OWN battles.

Christians acting as Christians and trying to take back their religion from those who only cry "Lord, Lord."

Or not.

[Critters2]

17. Most of them don't belong to the same churches as liberals and

moderates, and you can't excommunicate them from their own churches. There are some situations I don't get, like Bush and Cheney in the United Methodist Church, which claims to be liberal. But in general, the extremists and liberals live in different spheres.

As to talk shows, you gotta get invited, and Larry King never asks progressive Christians. No one does.

[WinkyDink]

30. Point out their HYPOCRISY, their PHONY "morality" and LOVE of WAR.

Their GREED. Their WRATH. Their PRIDE.

For starters.

[cali]

18. You evidently haven't been keeping up

There's a concerted effort on the part of liberal and moderate Christians, including Evangelists, to exert influence and they constantly criticize the fundies.

[The Stranger]

22. The moderate ones I know seem neutral to the Evangelist Fundies.

They offhandedly treat them like their "crazy cousins." There is a decided lack of revulsion or any reaction to what is going on.

But maybe you're right. Maybe I haven't been keeping up.

[cali]

27. There's been a lot of press

lately about how the moderate and liberal religious organizations are fighting the fundies. Quite heartening. I'll try and find some links for you.

[Skidmore]

7. No, but they are a freaking minority of religious extremists,

not unlike the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, or any zealot extremist Jewish group. Same stuff...out of the mainstream religious rantings accompanied by a huge messianic complex and the inability to let other CHOOSE their own spiritual paths.

[texastoast]

9. Exactly

As much as we cannot stand bigoted assholes, we just have to wait until their particular brand of idiots evolve.

Shame, wouldn't you say, that they are just going to have to realize evolution is real and that someday tolerance will be one of their character traits that they will actually exhibit?

I'm not holding my breath, but that's just evolution for ya.

Hey, and welcome to DU!

:toast:

[3dman]

14. Thanks!

That's the thing about tolerance--it cuts both ways. Those who push it so hard also need to observe it.

[Critters2]

20. Exactly

I let them persist so they'll let me persist. And believe me, some of them would rather I didn't.

[Richard Steele]

26. You might tell the fundies about your "tolerance cuts both ways" theory.

THEY are the ones trying to have TOLERANCE removed
from the laws of our nation, and everyone knows it.

[3dman]

29. That's the thing about the fundies and TOLERANCE,

I don't hear them constantly preaching about it.

[Richard Steele]

31. That's because they OPPOSE it. They want bigotry and hate, not freedom.

They are strongly opposed to the very principles
this nation's laws are founded upon.

They dream of a fascist, totalitarian nation where
only the Bible is LAW, and only THEY are allowed
to interpret it. And they are pretty open about
working to establish it.

So, no, you sure don't hear them "constantly preaching"
about tolerance like the fellow they claim to follow did.

What was his name again?

[texastoast]

33. And too bad

Wouldn't the world be so much a better place if we could "just all get along" instead of trying to make other people fit into what we think the mold should be.

Fundies are just so . . . primitive, God love them all.

[flyingfysh]

2. It's the First Amendment

They have to be "allowed" to exist. You are perfectly free to convince them or others that the religious extremists are mistaken.

[villager]

4. not quite as "perfectly free" when the corporate media

gives extremists a free platform.

Even that playing field, and then we'll see how that First Amendment works out...

[EFerrari]

3. Good question. I guess I just assumed that most of them

were just manipulating actual religious extremists for their dough. But, after a couple of generations of this, some of those manipulated people have accumulated wealth as well, and moved into the halls of power.

I'd be interested to see what DUers think or know about this.

[FlavaKreemSnak]

5. Because it is the best thing for war. I am sorry but that is why.

I can't believe how my attitude has changed. I used to never even think about any of this stuff, I would just believe whatever they said because I didn't know anything about it. But all that has been changing. I don't mean that I have become an expert, I mean that if you just read and think about it a little bit, the stuff about freedom and democracy does not make any sense. It is like the stuff about human shields. If people fighting back against Israel are around people who are not fighting back, like children, then why aren't people in America and Israel that live close to military bases human shields? And especially Israel, when you look at a map, you will see it is small. And they have a lot of military bases, so they have to be around where people are, and nobody calls those people human shields. It is the same as saying that anybody that fights back against Israel or America is a terrorist. We don't say that about anybody else. I mean if Denmark invaded France and the French people fought back, would they be terrorists and human shields? So you see after a while it just stops making sense.

[nosillies]

8. 'Cause they let us persist. And fair's fair.

And there are efforts, across the nation. They just don't get media coverage.

[Tsiyu]

10. Religious extremists are also huge opportunists

They have taken advantage of the American Way - the tolerance we have for different faiths and beliefs - and are using our live-and-let-live social structure to destroy the very Constitution that guarantees THEIR religious freedom.

These people are not more in touch with god nor are they more moral than anyone else. They are greedy, self-serving scum who want to go back to the Robber Baron days and they are using the American system to get there.

Moderate Christians refuse to speak out against them, for the most part (on DU this is the exception, as many moderate Christians here cannot stand the extremists) and most other folks just don't know enough about the extremists' tactics or agenda to raise any stink.

[nealmhughes]

15. They really don't present a unified theory or theology. It is a grab bag

of bits and pieces, much as the evangelical Protestant movement is. There are basicly no bishops or synods or any other authority except for a self-selected and perpetuated board of elders in each mega church, which in turn is a puppet for a cult of personality.

This one heals, another promises physical prosperity, another both, and all agree on one thing: the legitimatization of a desert blood cult's tribal taboos and its shamans' hallucinatory rantings. They love tribal taboos, mass murder, physical over spiritual, and their own correctness.

A lot of it comes out of Calvin, who basicly turned every tenet of Orthodox Christianity on its head in order to "demonstrate" his correctness in being as anti-Rome, Canterbury and Constantinople as possible. On the other side, Calvin's minions extolled the virtue of a strong Puritan state (check out the lack of freedom in Geneva under Calvin).

The fundalmentalist movement was set in stone by the Scofield Reference Bible whose interline notes on "Dispensation" were picked up by the biblically uneducated who thought his commentary was the actual text of the Bible.

That is where all the rapturing and thribulating come from: straight out of Isaac Scofield. Rushdoony and van Til went even further than Calvin and want the entire world, and just not a single canton in Suisse to be under God's Law, which is a hodgepodge of tribal superstitions and old tribal taboos.

Nota bene, that the orthodox view of Christianity is that the "Old Law" was nailed to the Cross with Christ and that thru baptism all Christians are the "true" heirs of David and Aaron, "a royal priesthood" with Christ as High Priest. The "New Jerusalem" is Heaven, not a dusty town in Judea. But Calvin and Rushdoony and van Til believed in the "elect" only being the true children of God, not the members of the Church. Hence, one gets asshats such as Robertson, Hagee and Falwell who seem to have a terrible need of political and financial clout in order to prove their election....

It isn't Christianity in an orthodox sense, it is a cult of personalities who have managed to hoodwink a great number of people by their flashy TV shows and mega churches and a social message that fits what they think lacks in their lives.

True Christianity is a religion of brotherhood, sacrifice and forgiveness, preached by the greatest Jew (trumping Einstein, Chagall, Mendellsohn, the Marxes and Trotsky) who ever lived. Read his own words sometimes, they are profound, indeed, and not a word one about violence, even when he cleansed the money changers tables in the Temple, he used a whip made of strings and not a real whip...

[Critters2]

19. Youve got Calvin completely wrong

Calvin, unlike Luther or the Anabaptists NEVER said the Roman Church was completely corrupt. He believed that there were ALWAYS congregations where the Word was rightly preached and the sacraments rightly practiced.

Calvin did wacky things like allow women to hold office in the church (check out the role of Deaconesses in Genevea), and enter into discussion with both Lutherans and Catholics.

Two of the most progressive Christian denominations in the US--the United Church of Christ and The Presbyterian Church (USA) trace their roots directly to Calvin, who taught that every area of life, private, social, political, religious, should be guided by the ethics of the faith. Thus, progressive Christians are progressive voters.

I'm a proud progressive Reformed Christian.

[nealmhughes]

24. I refer only to the recent neo-fundamentalist Calvinism afoot today,

not the classical elements. The Rushdoony and Fred Phelps variety, not the UCC!

To me, Calvin was just a wordsmith who craved political power. His prose is as convoluted and dense as one can imagine...and I don't see much room for mercy in his theology. The entire doctrine of election is repugnant to orthodox (Anglican, Methodist, RC, Lutheran and Orthodox members).

It seems odd that only English, German, Dutch and a few French speakers get to be elect...

[Critters2]

28. You need to read Ursinus and Olevianus on election

The reason we don't call ourselves "Calvinist" (as opposed to, say, Wesleyans or Lutherans) is that the Reformed movement draws on the work of many Reformers, and is not static. Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda. Olevianus and Ursinus moved away from double predestination. And Calvin never speculates as to the nationalities of the elect. I believe it was the Anglicans who did that, by way of the British Empire.

[AZBlue]

32. Too bad that whole Hitler thing didn't work out.

Sounds like you might have been happy there. I hear there are some very nice governments in the middle east that control all forms of religious expression - perhaps you should look to relocating there.

:wtf:

[earth mom]

34. What's obvious on this thread is that religious people can't handle

criticism of the way they behave in regards to their faith. That's the root of the problem. If people can't admit they are wrong, how can they understand that they are stepping on others peoples toes in the first place?! And Congress?! They are way too mealy mouthed to say anything at the risk of insulting their "base".

What don't people get about keeping it to yourself and being PRIVATE about it?!

Because...That is EXACTLY what the founding fathers wanted and intended for this nation!

Meanwhile this country goes to hell in a hand basket BECAUSE of religion!

Talk about TOTAL insanity!!! :banghead: