Bachmann: 9/11 Hits Were God's Judgment Against United States

Bachmann has a long history of crazy, saying crazy and stupid stuff. She rivals Georgie Junior.


http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Michele_Bachmann

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/25/the-craziest-things-miche_n_840503.html

 

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Innocence and contributing to why something happened aren't mutually exclusive. I'm sorry but actions do in fact have consequences.

 

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Breakfast Machine

It is easier for one to pretend to have a point if it is simple. Trying to account for the moral culpability of three hundred million people, is difficult. These are enormous social, economic, and political devices in play. Comparing the whole of the United States to an individual is an anthropomorphization that only goes so far.

It's kind of like Peter Griffin's breakfast machine, in a way.

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"What was the point of all that? It just shoots you! It doesn't make breakfast at all!"​

You know, people voted for compassionate conservatism and got George W. Bush, instead. A bunch of generals and bureaucrats tried to control the spread of communism, and raised an army of religious fanatics perfectly willing to be friends until the common enemy was gone. I go to a Shell station to buy gas, but I don't really have any illusions about why there's so much violence in Nigeria surrounding the petroleum operations. As a natural process, I don't foresee that violence spilling our direction anytime in the immediate future, but, to the other, I'm not going to be surprised if some whack job emerges from that conflict to take a swing.

And in that sense, while women have the most to fear in terms of sexual violence from closely-associated males, neither am I surprised when dangerous deviants do emerge.

For some, it's better to fight about blame than comprehend and attempt to remedy complex problems.

 

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Tiassa,

Either she said 'God's judgement/will, or she didn't. As far as I can see she didn't.
I think the attempted splitting of hairs is your gig.

What does this have to do with anything?

You have built up this thread on a misrepresentation at best, or a lie at worst. She may well have meant what you think she meant, but in no way did she say what you and others have said.

All versions of God are, unless it is a self-styled, striped down version.

All Christians?

I think her views on homosexuality is what's really at stake here.
God forbid anyone who has an opinion that does not sync with the current brainwashing propaganda.

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jan.

 

So you intend to go with that one - a woman getting tipsy is morally and ethically equivalent in their provocation of violence to a country abusing populations at gunpoint.

The moral equivalence of rapists and Robin Hoods had never occurred to me before - but of course they are both violent, and must take all responsibility for their violence, leaving nothing left over to be assigned to their victims, so it's perfectly clear once it's explained. I was hung up on the notion that "taking responsibility" had something to do with accountability for consequences.

I read it as her saying pretty much exactly what she was taken as saying.

So what did she say, according to you? She referred to a "hand of judgment" in the context of begging God's forgiveness - if she was not talking about God's hand and/or judgment, then whose? In what way does a fundie like Bachmann refer to the hand of judgment - whether "brought on themselves" or any other employment - without having referred to God's hand and God's judgment?

I mean, I can see getting irritated at the simplistic representation of God's will enacted being God's direct doing, but cut to the chase - Bachmann was saying things about God's judgment, the enactment of God's will via earthly means. True or False.

 

iceaura,

Firstly, she said what she said.

Secondly she said ''the hand of judgement'', she went on to ask..'' It’s no secret that we all are concerned that our nation may be in a time of decline. If that is in fact so, what is the answer?'' She believes that if we ask God for forgiveness we may repent, or turn away from OUR sins.

I get that she believes the people of America have brought about ''the hand of judgement'', and the answer lies with aligning themselves with the almighty God, in ridding the country (people) of sin they themselves have caused.

jan.

 

And that would be God's hand and God's judgment - the only reference Bachmann has ever intended with such language.
- - -
Bachmann was saying things about God's judgment, the enactment of God's will via earthly means. True or False?

 

See any mention of God?

Here's where she starts to mention God.
Please point out where she say's it was an enactment of God's judgement/will, why America is in the predicament she described?

God's judgement/will?
Where?

jan.

 

Laplace, Prima Facie

It's not that we don't appreciate your invocation of an inherently atheistic interpretation, but if we consider this in the context of LaPlace, what, really, is the more extraordinary assertion?

• A ferociously public Christian ...

• ... at a Christian rally ...

• ... explaining the need to reaffirm our Christian faith in God every September 11 ...

(A) ... is expressing a Christian sense of judgment.

(B) ... is expressing an inherently atheistic metaphor for justice.​

​

It's also worth noting, in terms of evidence:

Speaking to a reporter from the St. Petersburg Times Sunday, Bachmann said:

"I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?' Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we've got to rein in the spending."​

According to Bachmann's representative, the Minnesota congresswoman's words were not to be taken seriously.

(Menzie)​

And I'm all well and fine with jokes, but there is a larger reality to consider:

Bachmann's campaign said her remarks were wisecracks, not prophecy. "Obviously she was saying it in jest," campaign spokeswoman Alice Stewart told the website Talking Points Memo. Videos show Bachmann and the audience laughing during the comments.

But the Old Testament is rife with references to finding God's will in the whirlwind -- from floods to the fire that consumed Sodom and Gomorrah. And many of Bachmann's fellow evangelicals surmise that storms and hurricanes can carry divine messages, a recent survey suggests.

Nearly six in 10 white evangelicals believe natural disasters are a sign from God, according to a survey conducted last March by Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with Religion News Service. A majority also believe that God punishes a nation for its citizens' sins, the survey found.

That view was controversially expressed six years ago, when evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson, citing the Book of Leviticus, linked Hurricane Katrina to the country's abortion laws. Natural disaster prophecies have become almost commonplace for Robertson, who also blamed Haiti's 2010 earthquake on an 18th century "pact with the devil."

(Robertson also said last week that a crack in the Washington Monument caused by an earthquake was a sign that Jesus' return is imminent.)

Evangelicals' belief in a God who influences human history and trust in an inerrant Bible inform their views on natural disasters, said Robert P. Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute.

In that sense, Bachmann has plenty of company among evangelicals, and more than a few Bible verses to back her up.

Psalm 107, for example, says God "commands and raises the stormy wind, which lifts up the waves. ... He turns rivers into a wilderness and the watersprings into dry ground."

In the Book of Jonah, God sent a mighty tempest upon the sea to force the reluctant prophet to take a message of repentance to Nineveh. And, of course, there's the flood that sent Noah adrift for 40 days and nights, sent to cleanse the earth of its wickedness.

The God that giveth rain can also withhold it, the Bible suggests.

"If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit," God tells the Israelites in the Book of Leviticus.

That passage may have been in the mind of Texas Gov. Rick Perry last April when he issued a proclamation praying for an end to his state's drought.

"It seems right and fitting that the people of Texas should join together in prayer to humbly seek an end to this devastating drought and these dangerous wildfires," Perry proclaimed, a few months before he entered the GOP presidential contest.

(Burke)​

Or as one commentator noted during the presidential primaries in 2011:

The audience booed when columnist Byron York asked U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota at the Republican presidential debate last week, if, as president, she would be “submissive to her husband.”

That question would have been out of order if she had excluded her evangelical Protestant faith from her presidential campaign. But she has made her faith as a Bible believer central to that campaign, so voters have a right to know which parts of the Bible she really believes in, and which parts (if any) she ignores.

Unfortunately, we cannot ask God whether He has in fact called Bachmann to be president, but we can ask her to interpret what she affirms to be the Word of God.

(Prothero)​

Noah Kristula-Green grabbed this awesome quote for conservative analyst David Frum's site:

Bachmann: Our law reads [that] we will teach abstinence until marriage in our sex-ed curriculum. And this legislator wanted to strike two words: 'until marriage'. The reason that she wanted to strike that we will be teaching abstinence until marriage is because she said: well that's not true for everyone, because your truth may be that people should be abstinent until marriage but not everyone does. 'Our society has changed' she said, so we need to strike the words, 'until marriage.'

Interviewer: So in other words it sounds as though she was saying: because we disagree with abstinence until marriage ...

Bachmann: We'll adopt hedonism. [Laughter] In essence, that's what she is saying. That we will not have a standard. And the Bible presents a standard to which everyone can repair, whether you are a believer or not .... This new way of thinking offers no standard.

(Italic accent added)​

In the end From the outset, I believe it fair to say that Bachmann in the context of an atheistic metaphor for justice is an extraordinary suggestion.
____________________

Notes:

Menzie, Nicola. "Michele Bachmann Quote About Earthquake, Irene Being Messages From God a Joke?" The Christian Post. August 29, 2011. ChristianPost.com. May 15, 2013. http://www.christianpost.com/news/m...e-irene-being-messages-from-god-a-joke-54702/

Burke, Daniel. "Bachmann's prophecy, joke or not, has lots of company". The Christian Century. August 29, 2011. ChristianCentury.org. May 15, 2013. http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2011-08/bachmanns-prophecy-joke-or-not-has-lots-company

Prothero, Stephen. "My Take: 5 biblical passages for Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry". Belief Blog. August 16, 2011. Religion.Blogs.CNN.com. May 15, 2013. http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/16/my-take-5-biblical-passages-for-bachmann-and-perry/

Kristula-Green, Noah. "Bachmann: The Bible is the Standard For All". Frum Forum. August 9, 2011. FrumForum.com. May 15, 2013. http://www.frumforum.com/bachmann-the-bible-is-the-standard-for-all/

 

Yes. The term "hand of judgment", employed by a fundie Christian to an audience of fundie Christians, and employed by Bachmann at any time, is a direct reference to the Christian God's punishment of sinners according to said deity's judgment of their sins. It's standard terminology.

Anyone familiar with American Christianity in general even, much less with the brand of Protestant Fundamentalism espoused by the campaigning Bachmann when addressing her base of political support, knows that.

 

If god has it in for America why has she not turned it into an impoverish undeveloped country yet? I lived in an undeveloped country for a year, Americans don't know what poverty is! Yet they scream histrionically at any stagnation let alone decline from their present egregiously hedonistic standard of living. Even if america was to get knocked down a few pegs economically they still would be very well off, they need to stop complaining.

 

So tipsy women have been assaulted by rapists, and America (Official Motto: "Abusing Populations At Gunpoint Since 1776!") has been assaulted by "Robin Hoods"? Are you seriously comparing the 9/11 hijackers and other terrorists to Robin Hood?

You want to rethink THAT a bit?

 

I could be wrong ....

While I cannot be certain, as I cannot speak for Ice, now that you've highlighted the statement it seems to me that the reason I missed it the first time is that I presumed the absurdity you have noted to be part of the point.

Some have chosen to attempt to braid another thread into this discussion, and while I simultaneously sympathize with their impulse and believe they have applied the point wrongly, that is where this strange thoroughfare originates.

In that context, I can only say, "Trust me, it makes sense."

Of course, I could easily be wrong.