Liberals and God
I have had several lengthy comments about my Falwell entry. It reminded me that liberals and Christian organizations are not that different but the people who those organizations are purported to represent are as different as night and day.
1. Having grown up in and gone to church 3-4 days a week for most of my juvenile years, (and it was not just church - it was Southern Baptist) and then going to college and rejecting Christ as a total and complete farce, I can safely say that Christian people and liberal people share very few features. My commenter felt that Christians are the last acceptably persecuted class - particularly by liberals. I would argue that Christian organizations and liberals are VERY similar and operate on a shared set of principles. But Christian people and liberal people are not.
1. Few liberals I know hate God. For one, these organizations don't believe in Him which makes hating Him logically difficult. But in actuality, they hate what mortals do in His name. (NOTE: The bumper sticker "Jesus, protect me from your followers" comes to mind). Kinsey-1 pointed out one central problem that many liberals have with Christianity which is their churches/organizations are tax free money sluices for conservative causes. But liberals have no comparable slush fund. Jerry Falwell was not Mother Theresa and let us all keep that in the front of our mind. Jerry Falwell was preaching hate and bigotry, not because he believed those stances personally, rather these sermons spoke to the masses, delivered votes, and expanded his power base. Christian organizations force us to deal with them because they won't leave their beliefs at the pulpit - which is where they belong. Christian organizations (much like liberals) are constantly trying to get the Federal government to impose their will. And you can look at my previous blog entries to note that I think that using the judiciary to solve problems, that the legislative and executive branches should solve, is fundamentally wrong. Some silly Christian things might include, abstinance-only education, putting the Ten Commandments in court houses, giving tax money in the form of vouchers to fund an inferior religious education, churches are tax free organizations, and so on.
Bottom line: Christian organizations work the system as bad as, if not worse than, any liberals. Christian organizations feed at the Federal money trough so heavily and intently that it makes welfare mothers driving a Cadillac blush.
2. We live in a secular country. We were founded as a secular country. We should operate by a shared secular set of core beliefs. Any Christian organization who is going to talk about how this country is Judeo-Christian (I love how the Jews always get the first part of the hyphen but are only 1-2% of the country's population) needs to address what Christian values were being implemented when Andrew Jackson offered rewards to people to shoot Indians in the 1820s, they might wonder what Christian prinicples allowed slavery, which Christian principles allowed for the Japanese to be interred in concentration camps, which Christian principles were at work during Jim Crow years, which Christian principles were in place for the vast and expansive discrimination against Jews during most of this Republic's existence, the practical enslavement of Chinese to build railroads, the practical enslavement of the Mexicans who do migratory farm work, etc etc etc.
Bottom line: If the country was TRULY Christian, these sorts of events would never happen. If we are a secular country (which we are), these evils are easily explained.
My view is that if you are a Christian, you are a Christian all week long. Not only on Sunday morning - but Monday through Saturday. You have no idea how many sermons I sat through that offered this as the main tenet. (NOTE: Liberals NEVER pretend to be a conservative). Christians organizations ought to promote love and compassion all day, every day because that is the model Christ laid down.
3. Christian organizations have to recruit people to their wicked lifestyle. I've always admired the Christian organizations for talking about how fags recruit young boys and girls to their cause because they cannot procreate and therefore their wicked ways would die out without fresh blood. I admire this because Christian organizations are criticizing fags for doing the same activities that Christian organizations do.
Somehow when Christians are recruiting for Him it is different than we fags are recruiting him.
Bottom line: Christian organizations have to keep the money rolling in because they need to fund the conservative candidates or hire lobbyists to modify or create legislation to support their belief structures.
When you hear "liberals" on talk radio - please remember that these "liberals" are not individuals, rather they are organizations that promote a certain ideology. "Liberals" operate by the same principles as "churches". This is a whole different ball of wax from thinking about individuals who have a left-leaning belief structure and individuals who think of Christ as their Savior.
posted by The Scientist's View @ 05:14
5 Comments:
1. I agree with you on the similarity of the politics of Liberalism vs. Christianity. Especially, since may Liberals reject God, they make Politics their religion and pursue it with the same passion and lack of factual proof.
1. Liberals have plenty of tax exempt orgs. Check out Jesse Jackson for one. You may also want to examine his corrupt systematic black mailing and livelihood by shaking people down.
2. This country was founded on religious freedom and the freedom to express religion. And it wasn't Christian principals that interred thousand of Japanese, it was FDR, by whom you claim to have defined your brand of liberalism. And it religious organizations, then as it is now, that reject slavery. And lets stop laying the legacy of slavery at the door of the USA. It was practically the entire world that participated in that debauchery and if you will take note it continues today in mostly non-Christian nations.
Liberals are so self loathing and busy blaming America for everything past mistake that they miss the fact that these injustices continue today and do nothing to change it and fix what they can. The past is history and we should learn from our mistakes not dwell in guilt that our generation had nothing to do with.
3. You paint with a very broad brush. We as gays should know better than anyone not to believe in stereo types. There are many good charitable causes that Church's and religion excel at and without the bureaucratic waste and fraud of the government.
You seem to be so traumatized by your own religious affiliation you are defining you opinions by emotion rather than fact. This is a very common trait among Liberals.
That all being said, I personally abhor the politics of organized religion. However, I am rational enough to realize the good that can result from true spirituality, which is missing in allot of religion. I also identify myself as a Libertarian philosophically, and have a hard time relating to the Republican or Democratic parties because of the same zealotry I find appalling about organized religion. I this particularly true of the Dem's since it is primarily liberals who have made politics their religion as I have previously stated.
Thanks for the great Blog and keep up the good work. I enjoy your perspective. That is why it was surprising to me that you were so emotional about the Falwell issue when you use such good rational on issue like the HRC etc.
The belief that the future is better than the past is the definition of liberalism. This does not imply self-loathing or blame. Critically examining your experience in an effort to learn and grow, whether on a personal or national level, is very rational.
Saying that liberals are more prone to defining their opinions by emotions is an interesting charge. Religious faith is an emotion-based opinion and is FAR more prevalent amongst conservatives, so that broad brush stroke doesn't seem any more true of liberals than of conservatives.
But you are right. Religious organizations can and do accomplish many positive things. What continues to confound me is the lack of protest against the hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism from within Christianity itself. The policies and goals of politicized Christianity are pretty blantantly un-Christlike. How do mainstream Christian moderates counter Christian extremism without becoming extreme?
Though I suppose if we knew that answer, the war on terror would be going much better as well.
Sting said: "Men go crazy in congregations - they only get better one by one."
I reject the belief that the future is better than the past is the definition of liberalism.
Liberalism seems to thrive of doomsday paranoid prospects such as the shaky science of global warming etc.
I find that conservatives have a better outlook for the future even when confronting a gloomy world forecast such as terrorism.
I find modern liberalism to be defined by a sense of paranoid victim hood of self loathing emotional lemmings.
you're right. i mistated the difference. conservatives gauge progress primarily by the extent to which the future preserves what they see as good about the past/present. liberals judge progress primarily by the extent to which the future corrects the problems of the past/present.
Obviously, a complete ideological marriage to either point of view can lead to problems.
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