"Despite our verbal proclamations to the contrary, Americans (Christian or otherwise) have such a negative visceral association with the concept of socialism that we-thus far-have been unable to have an authentic, productive conversation about whether greed or compassion is the more moral (and productive) incentive for human beings engaged in the social experiment of the democratic nation-state."
I have existential debates with myself about random stuff all the time. We caught a History Channel program about the Marianas Trench last weekend and I read an article by Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg. Steinberg wrote about how one way to check whether one is a a zealot or rational person is to try and argue the strongest case for an opposing viewpoint. If one can't argue convincingly for the other side, one may be an extremist.
So, avoiding the finer points of tectonic plates, subduction and the Pacific Rim of Fire, one scientist on the History Channel program held up a rock from the bottom and said something like, "This material is 173 million years old, it's one of the oldest rocks on the planet." Now, I'm watching and going, if someone is a Creationist, they don't believe that rock is more than something like 6,000 years old.
In order to not believe scientists or rational people on the matter of evolution, people must basically refute a whole lot of theories. Basically, everything from gravity to the second law of thermodynamics to evolution is a theory...it is the mainstream belief until a better theory comes along, whenever that is (if you got a better theory for gravity, I wanna invest in your company).
So, evolutionary theory is validated by carbon dating, which is rooted in the theory that atoms have a nucleus with various energy levels full of electrons and the different number of electrons, their degradation and release of energy is what radioactivity is all about. At that point, I began thinking that if a Creationist doesn't believe in evolution, then they also cannot believe in the nuclear bomb, because both are essentially rooted in the same theory of radioisotopes. How can a Creationist argue for their agenda in a school powered by a nuclear power plant? Something's gotta give.
This ended my internal debate trying to argue for Creationism. While I am not an atheist, I am apparently a scientific zealot.
I am a big fan of the Bible, Christian and other religious teachings.
I am not a big fan of religious dogma of any sort, be it Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, partly because I believe that religions are man-made institutions. I do fully reserve the right to believe in a God.
Jewish people that are not right-wing realize that when a right-wing Christian acts all friendly to their people it's not because he's being friendly in a Christian way, but it's because he wants them to die in the Rapture.
Or so a Jewish friend once told me.
The Rev. Al Sharpton has gotten himself into some hot water for saying:
"And as for the one Mormon running for office, those that really believe in God will defeat him anyway. So don't worry about that. That's a temporary, that's a temporary situation."His statement came during a debate with Christopher Hitchens, the author of the recent book, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
"...Sharpton and [Paula] Zahn discussed the fact that until 1965 [according to CNN], or 1978, according to Sharpton, the Mormon church did not accord blacks full status. That engendered the following exchange:Considering that the founders of this country and several generations of its people afterwards put into place and accepted laws that "did not see blacks as equal" this is a curious statement. Sharpton is supposed to be clergy, hence the "Reverend" (licensed and ordained a minister at age 9, says Wikipedia).
SHARPTON: ...prior to '65, '78, whenever it was, they did not see blacks as equal, I do not believe that as real worshippers of God, because I do not believe that God distinguishes between people."
"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." - Sinclair Lewis
"Christianity -- this a subject that I am actually qualified to discuss"Carlson attended a liberal arts college in Connecticut graduating with a B.A. in History. Nowhere did I see any mention of a seminary or a theological curriculum.
- Tucker Carlson
"We will have times where it will wax and wane in the severity and attention but will take a long time to break them."My view is that Communist Russia and fundamentalist Islam are connected in their authoritarian worldview. However, Communist Russians were not willing to die for their cause. This is evident by the rampant corruption in those failed states. Those in power weren't willing to be poor like their countrymen and so the system and the idealogy died for the most part. China is Communist is name only now, and Cuba, well, it's Cuba.
"Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination."Leviticus is in the Old Testament and therefore part of the Torah, the book of faith of Jewish people. To further complicate things, there are different interpretations of Leviticus by Christians and Jews.
"Many would regard 'abomination,; 'enormous sin', etc. as particularly poor translations of the original Hebrew word which really means 'ritually unclean' within an ancient Israelite era. The Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (circa 3rd century BCE) translated 'to'ebah' into Greek as 'bdelygma,' which meant ritual impurity. If the writer(s) of Leviticus had wished to refer to a moral violation, a sin, he would have used the Hebrew word 'zimah.'"
That being said, the Hebrew word mentioned on the religious tolerance website, "to'evah," has confused Jewish scholars and translators for centuries. It doesn't really mean "abomination"; I would use it more as an adjective, more like "ritually forbidden." This doesn't change many things for modern Conservative or Orthodox Judaism. Both movements are rooted in "halacha," or Jewish Law, and therefore take biblical or rabbinic verses as literally as possible. Conservative Jews, however, have made every effort to distinguish themselves from the Orthodox by taking changes in society and culture into account and applying traditional Jewish standards to contemporary life. Hence, we get to the Time article, which discussed yesterday's big decision by those Conservative rabbis. If you read that article--and the official press release--very closely, you'll notice that these rabbis essentially said, "There are homosexuals in our community. We can't push them aside anymore and we have to respect them. So, each individual congregation and institution will be allowed to treat the issue in its own way--as long as there remains a place for gays and lesbians to practice as Conservative Jews." They were very careful, though, to maintain the existing translation of that verse from Leviticus which, on a literal level, forbids acts of sodomy. (Something else to note about that verse...it technically only forbids "lying with another man," i.e. sex, not homosexuality itself. Interesting, huh?)Given all that, I still question all religious texts that are taken literally (the Koran, Torah, Bible or Vedas). I think that people who practice this are textualists.
