What makes no sense about the rationale evangelicals offer as why they support Trump

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Xelor, Apr 20, 2018.

  1. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    2,046
    To most Christians, anyone not a Christian is not going to heaven. Does that mean they are inferior? No, not at all. It just means that Christians wish they would convert. I can't help it if your ignorant of these simple facts. And I really can't help it if that makes you think all Christians, the most vocal supporters of Israel, are all anti-Semites.
    So a white supremacist giving up their "core belief" doesn't improve them?
    You might want to rephrase that.
    Hard to remember stuff that never happened. Five examples of capitalist economies not being called such, huh? I'm waiting. I'll even help count them.
    Again, who said it wasn't torture?
    So you didn't say this:
    I'm not sure how they'd need any excuse for something compatible with the Bible.
    Hahaha!
    Hahaha! You think Bill Maher and Michelle Goldberg are experts on religion.
    Priceless.
     
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  3. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    You did. And then you called people pansies for not handling mild training exercises as well as Navy Seals can handle them.

    The US killed people by accident - only the pansies, no doubt - and used these techniques on children in front of their parents - more pansies - and suffocated KSM so many times he barely knew his own name - he a pansy too?

    The example of KSM is interesting, btw, for its demonstration of two things:
    1) The US uses torture for the same reason all torturing governments end up using torture - for intimidation, fear. Information has little to do with a government torture program after a while (there are much better ways to acquire information), and the US has been no exception. KSM's "confession" included multiple absurdities, falsehoods so flagrant they were clearly meant to be spotted by the informed, by his former supporters. "Look what we can make anyone say" - that was the message.
    2) Modern torture does brain damage, hidden physical damage.
    No, five examples of rightwing PC restrictions on the news media vocabulary. Try to follow the argument.

    But anyone can play along: As far as five examples of capitalist economies not being called capitalist in the news reports of their troubles? Colombia under the drug lords, Argentina under the Generals nowdays (at the time, before the Dirty War details came out, they were praised for their capitalism), Somalia a while back, El Salvador and Honduras and Guatemala under the death squads, Russia now, Germany under the Nazis, Mexico under the Narcos, - - - - - even the US during the crashes: afaik none of the bad guys, fraudulent corporations, even financial industry scam sectors, were routinely - or ever, even - referred to as capitalist entities with capitalist influence and capitalist motives or interests.

    Compare the vocabulary of the reporting on Chavez's Venezuela, say.
    I did not mention the Bible, or anything in the Bible, or anything much involving the Bible. You've got my quote right there in front of you.
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2018
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  5. Bells Staff Member

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    Perhaps you should read your own link, which does not support your argument at all.

    You know, for our sake, because it is somewhat painful to watch.

    Says the one who just uttered the words "pansies" and "real men".

    Secondly, again, you really should take heed of what you are quoting in response, because it does not support your argument at all. Unless you want to argue that "you're not going to die, but you think you are" is not psychologically damaging to begin with.

    Thirdly, you again ignore the fact that soldiers undergoing the training are doing so in a controlled and safe environment. The people the US and co (for the US Government) have tortured had no such assurances. In fact, what you deemed to just be water-boarding also involved beatings, threats of death, physical violence, sexual violence, and other forms of torture (such as forcing them to consume human excrement) over prolonged periods of time.

    So how about you be real here and at the very least, try to post honestly.

    You know, for argument's sake.

    Setting fire to your own strawman, I see..

    But it is never referred as that.

    Understand why that would be?

    Well it is incompatible, unless you are a hardliner who burns an eternal flame for the OT.

    Or perhaps you can quote Jesus Christ advocating for torturing people..

    Is the blindness selective?
     
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  7. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    [1/3]

    You really should be careful about that laugh, since it signals to everyone else that you are about to botch up yet again. In this case, for instance, you can laugh at your straw man all you want, but—

    —it doesn't change what people are telling you.

    Sure, Goldberg gets some credit, having, y'know, written an acclaimed book on the subject. But Maher? That's the thing; Goldberg was hardly first to the point. Nor Maher; by the time he got around to his wisecracks in 2003, it wasn't exactly a new point. Frederick Clarkson↱ has been working the Dominionism beat for decades:

    It is important to underscore that dominionism, even as it evolves, is not a passing fashion but an historic trend. This trend featured fierce theological battles in the 1980s that pitted the largely apolitical pre-millennial dispensationalism that characterized most of 20th century evangelicalism against a politicized, dominion-oriented postmillennialism.

    The turning point in this theological struggle was the 1973 publication of Rushdoony's 800-page Institutes of Biblical Law, which offered what he believed was a "foundation" for a future biblically based society, and his vision of generations of "dominion men" advancing the "dominion mandate" described in the biblical book of Genesis. The Institutes sought to describe what a biblically-based Christian society would look like. It included a legal code based on the Ten Commandments, and the laws of Old Testament Israel. This included a long list of capital offences—mostly religious or sexual crimes. But Rushdoony and other leading Reconstructionists did not believe that "Biblical Law" could be imposed in a top down fashion by a national theocracy. They thought the biblical kingdom would emerge from the gradual conversion of people who would embrace what they consider to be the whole word of God, and that this could take hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of years. Rushdoony and many Reconstructionists also believed strongly in a vastly decentralized form of government. Theorist Gary North writes, for example, that, "It isn't possible to ramrod God's blessings from the top down, unless you're God. Only humanists think that man is God."

    Nevertheless, Reconstructionist thinkers could not prevent others from feeling a greater sense of urgency about moving up the time-table, or from taking dramatic political action, or in the case of anti-abortion activists, even committing vigilante violence. Indeed, the Institutes and the Reconstructionist works that followed provided a justification for political action that pulled many evangelicals from the political sidelines and into the fray. They also provided an optimistic theology of inevitable victory, suggesting therefore that political action was not only possible but necessary. In the longer term, it also established the often unacknowledged ideological framing for the Christian Right....

    The 2016 advocacy paper, published in The Public Eye, focuses largely on Sen. Ted Cruz. Roy Moore? David Barton? These are people who are Americans known to publicly pledge allegiance to another flag.

    We come back to, Michelle Goldberg↱, including notes from Clarkson:

    Every year, for the past twelve years, D. James Kennedy has hosted the Reclaiming America for Christ conference, usually at his Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale. The event brings together hundreds of committed Christian nationalists for two days of lectures, seminars, and devotions that, as the 2001 conference website puts it, "chart the path for believers to take back the land in America". Speakers have included Roy Moore, David Barton, and Rick Scarborough, as well as the occasional GOP operative like Clinton prosecutor Kenneth Starr. Former Vice-President Dan Quayle delivered a speech in the first Reclaiming America for Christ Conference in 1994. In his book, Eternal Hostility, Frederick Clarkson described the scene:

    Quayle's speech was unremarkable, except for his presence during the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance—to the Christian flag—which preceded his remarks. The Christian flag, white with a gold cross on a blue field in the upper-left corner, flies outside Kennedy headquarters. The assemblage recited together: I pledge allegiance to the Christian Flag and to the Savior for whose Kingdom it stands. One Savior, crucified, risen, and coming again with life and liberty for all who believe.

    For all who believe. Reclaiming America for Christ is a place where the Christian nationalist movement drops its democratic pretenses and indulges its theocratic dreams.

    Don't get me wrong; it's not a thrilling prospect to sit around and listen through a presentation like that, especially if one is sympathetic to these conservative identity politics, but, yeah, making the point of laughing off Goldberg in order to grind a fallacy for satisfaction probably wasn't the best idea.

    You botched up again, Vociferous: The point, as PJdude↑ explained: Dominionism and premillennial dispensationalism are not obscure, new ideas. The terminology is often esoteric, but that has to do with customs of discourse, and, furthermore, we see these people operating throughout American politics; they are integral to social conservative politics, domestic and international. The question of how you are ignorant of these issues fits right alongside a curious, growing body of evidence, like your perpetual inability↑ to properly invoke fallacy, or general unfamiliarity with American history and culture. Nobody is quite certain what to do with it, but constant floundering botchery is not conducive to rational discourse.

    And, seriously: Truculent laughter and self-denigration can certainly make an endearing trait for a supporting character in a sitcom, but after a few seasons sympathetic audience members start to realize they feel insulted. This isn't a sitcom, and the audience, generally speaking, is well past questions of sympathy.

    And, yes, for the record, erasure of Hebrew culture by subsumption into post-Christian identity politics is demonstrably anti-Semitic.

    Look, we get that it feels good to go around throwing phrases at people as if imitating what you've seen others use in the past, but when you do so in this extraordinarily naïve manner, the primary result is self-denigration. I mean, sure, you annoy people and all, by it, but the main effect is to embarrass yourself. If, for instance, you're going to say, "You don't seem to understand religion," then it might behoove you to have a clue, and the laughing on the frontside of grinding some weird fallacy about Coulter—and, yes, cultural erasure of the Hebrews is demonstratively anti-Semitic—just isn't a good idea when seeking satisfaction according to fallacious invincible ignorance°.

    Furthermore, one of the reasons people are only affording the slightest effort attending your pretense of ignorance is that they have no real reason to give it any more. When all you have to show is ignorance and petulant truculence, what will they expect?

    I mean, seriously, Ta-Nehisi Coates scares you that badly?

    You can't even cope with what people put in front of you. The only merit to your arguments is defined by your own satisfaction:

    Making up fallacies like that—"And I really can't help it if that makes you think all Christians ..."—is precisely unacceptable.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    ° The fallacy of invincible ignorance should not be confused with the Catholic ethical teaching appropriated with the name. While invincble ignorance in the Catholic context is generally framed as eliminating culpability, the fallacy of invincible ignorance starts to sound like determined and calculated vincible ignorance, as one postures invincible ignorance as license to continued fallacious behavior. What distinguishes the ignorance postured in this fallacious behavior from nescience is the insistence on pretending some manner of knowledge about what one clearly doesn't know. If one poses as sufficient authority to dismiss others as not understanding a subject, or missing a mark, then it eventually becomes somewhat obligatory for that one to have a clue what they are on about.​

    Clarkson, Frederick. "Dominionism Rising: A Theocratic Movement Hiding in Plain Sight". Political Research Associates. 18 August 2016. PoliticalResearch.org. 14 May 2018. http://bit.ly/2IzTEWn

    KUOW. "Michelle Goldberg: The Rise of Christian Nationalism". 13 April 2007. Speakers Forum. 18 October 2007. KUOW.org. 14 May 2018. http://bit.ly/1GO3Luv

    [(cont.)]
     
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  8. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    [2/3]

    To reiterate: If you are going to try to tell anyone they don't seem to understand religion, then have a clue what you're on about.

    "To most Christians, anyone not a Christian is not going to heaven," is not a clue. Calvin wouldn't have even called it balbutive; he would have called it sinful, because you're old enough to better. At a similar valence of generality, we might remind that most Christians are also apostate.

    Qualifications like, "To most Christians", and strawstuffing such as, "all Christians", are pretty worthless fallacies, right now. There is a point at which not understanding the fact and influence of Dominionism and premillennial dispensationalism is, essentially, vincible; note Clarkson: "it also established the often unacknowledged ideological framing for the Christian Right".

    Part of what happens is these political arguments and sentiments, as Clarkson suggests, hide in plain sight. Start with the idea that it is not proper to suggest certain things about people without some manner of proof. While original sin suggests, for instance, that we should presume to distrust our neighbor; Christ, of course, alters this, but the alleviation of preumed sinfulness also makes accusation very much seem the realm of The Accuser. There are some things you just don't say about people. Okay, sure. Now: How can "Christianity" fall into that range? Well, watch who and what gets trusted until otherwise disqualified. Jim Bakker, Jerry Falwell, Eddie Long, Ted Haggard, George Rekers. You know, just for instance.

    Let us try a different vector: Never trust someone who looks forward to the end of the world. And while it is easy to fallaciously rush to something or other about "all Christians", basic knowledge of Apocalypticism challenges such generalizations, as does any functional modicum of basic understanding about dogmatic and doctrinal diversity. But within a traditionalist outlook whereby, "hope for doomsday springs eternal" (Sutton↱), it is very easy to hide premillennial dispensationalism; consider this note from Steve Benen↱, five months ago:

    A Wall Street Journal report explained that evangelical Christians and Trump's allies in the religious right movement launched a “sustained push," which “began before he was in office," and which had the intended effect.

    Evangelical leaders have urged supporters to email the White House about moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. They have advocated on television. And since Mr. Trump took office, they have spoken about it frequently with him and other White House officials, according to multiple evangelical leaders close to Mr. Trump.

    “While this decision was not made exclusively in response to evangelicals, it would not have been made without the evangelical influence," said Johnnie Moore, a member of Mr. Trump's evangelical advisory board…. Mr. Moore said recognizing Jerusalem as the capital has been a frequent topic of conversation when evangelical leaders visit the White House, which under Mr. Trump has been almost daily.

    The piece added that the evangelicals who lobbied the president and his team “prize Jerusalem as a holy city, with special status as the place of Christ's death and his awaited return."

    Radical TV preacher Pat Robertson seemed to reference this on his television show this week, telling viewers, “The last battle is going to be over Jerusalem … that is the holy city. You go in favor of breaking up Jerusalem, you're going against the direct word of Jesus, and this is a prophecy that has stood for hundreds of years." Robert Jeffress, a Texas megachurch pastor and prominent White House ally, added that Jerusalem is the place Jesus “will set foot again on earth at his second coming."

    There's no reason to believe Trump made his controversial decision for theological reasons. Indeed, there's nothing to suggest the president even knows anything about this aspect of the issue.

    And then we might note Mr. Benen↱, again, today:

    There was already considerable controversy surrounding Donald Trump's decision to relocate the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Palestinians have long opposed the move, and the American president's willingness to ignore their concerns have made peace talks that much more difficult.

    Complicating matters, there will be an event in Jerusalem today to mark the opening of the new U.S. facility, and the opening prayer at the ceremony will be delivered by a right-wing Texas pastor with an ugly rhetorical record. In some circles, this isn't going over well ....

    .... There are two key angles to the story. The first is that Jeffress appears to support the relocation of the embassy as part of a fulfillment of a Biblical prophecy. For the White House to extend an invitation to the right-wing pastor, providing him with a prominent role in today's ceremony, signals at least tacit support for this theological vision.

    The second is that Romney is hardly Jeffress' only critic ....

    .... Of particular relevance today, he's also said “you can't be saved by being a Jew." As recently as three years ago, Jeffress even insisted that Christians in the United States are persecuted in ways comparable to Germany's treatment of Jews before the Holocaust.

    Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) once said to associate with Robert Jeffress was “beneath the office of president of the United States."

    What PJ told you isn't news. It wasn't news when Coulter tapped it. Nor was it news when Goldberg was putting together her book; nor Bill Maher wisecracking on Larry King's show, and his own. Every once in a while, Clarkson is giving us news, but that goes back to 1994, at least, which only makes the point. This isn't new. The only reason we don't talk about it more is that it makes the empowerment majority uncomfortable. To the one, it probably isn't unique to American Christendom, but, to the other, something about specks and planks, disrupts certain manners of internece dispute—an asymmetric phenomenon that will see self-branded "evangelicals" and "conservative Christians" denouncing "liberal Christianity" in perhaps the most dangerous manner their faith can find (see Mt. 12.30-31↱)—and, let's face it, actually accusing someone of working to advance the Apocalypse is a fraught question; most people, regardless of politic or label, generally eschew close scrutiny of their own identity assertions and the darker promises of associated philosophies, politics, and faiths. Bringing the end of the world is the stuff of protomythic supervillains, not good Christians. Except, well, it's a bit more complicated than that, and the Christians who would bring the end of the world for the sake of earthly fulfillment can pretty much boast it in the public square, and this Christian-majority country will likely not figure it out until long after things are on fire.

    And none of this is news.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Benen, Steve. "This Week in God, 12.9.17". msnbc. 9 December 2017. msnbc.com. 14 May 2018. https://on.msnbc.com/2II0VDF

    —————. "Trump taps right-wing pastor for US embassy event in Jerusalem". msnbc. 14 May 2018. msnbc.com. 14 May 2018. https://on.msnbc.com/2rGnDSO

    Sutton, Matthew Avery. "Apocalypticism in U.S. History". Oxford Research Encyclopedias. August, 2016. Religion.OxfordRe.com. 14 May 2018. http://bit.ly/2wKJ1eW

    Weigle, Luther, et al. The Bible: Revised Standard Version. New York: Thomas Nelson, 1971. University of Michigan. 14 May 2018. http://bit.ly/2rJddky

    [(cont.)]
     
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  9. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    [3/3]

    I might point to Clarkson, and this is part of the evangelical fervor Reagan tapped in the '80s, but as Sutton, previously quoted, reminds by the mere fact of surveying "Apocalypticism in U.S. History", the basic gist has been around the whole time. Dispensationalism itself seems to originate in th 1830s, and with the Plymouth Brethren, which in turn is funnier than it ought to be, but that is a fairly obscure clue that we can skip for the moment because last week brought me to a weird intersection of Crowley and incels, while at the same time there is an actual juxtaposition worth considering, about letting vocal incel terrormongers represent virginity being no more wise than letting American conservative evangelicals represent Christianity.

    Premillennial dispensationalism is one of the big reasons why. It seems strange to consider they require, at least functionally though sometimes formally in questions of free will, that God not know what is in a person's heart, as such, but that is an important thing to remember. The underlying idea is that they can work to create the Apocalypse so that Jesus will return to whisk them away, and then return with His saints to unleash tribulation upon the world. And, yes, they presume they will be Saved. And, yes, they inherently figure God is just fine with this. Or, if they really need a fallback, Jesus Saves, and they really, really believe (see John 3.16↱).

    It's like I said, recently, in another thread↗: People aren't going to rush to write your theses for you. Similarly, when all you have to offer is belligerent ignorance, nobody is certain what to offer. And as noted above↑, it would help if your responses to people accomplished something other than reminding it's not worth the effort. To wit, who will dive and delve American Christendom for the sake of a troll? And, let us be clear, why would anyone? It's a tall enough task getting even those who disdain religion for some reason or another to attend the history; nobody is really up for combing Noll, Riesebrodt, Armstrong, Pagels, Russell, &c., when the best they can expect in return is pretentious laughter and snd fallacy; the actual primary source record for all this has been under scrutiny and debate for centuries, and the twentieth century primary documents are just a miserable fever swamp. Think, for instance, of Curtis Lee Laws and fundamentalism as a reaction. Try the Dallas Theological Seminary (Chafer, Woolverton, Pentecost, &c.) and their progeny, including the aforementioned Robert Jeffress. Have at it, if you want, and you might even find a clue. By the time you get around to Rushdoony and Chalcedon, all pretense to accidents of irony are generally demolished, but even that conflict between conformity, adaptation, and an institutional power requires some understanding of the record in order to appreciate the fifth-century version of trolling among Catholics and the irony of Calvinists invoking the episode as an identity banner.

    And, really, that's all within one tree; it doesn't speak to other Apocalyptic doctrines, which, in turn, become their own questions.

    Meanwhile—

    —you apparently can't be bothered to invest enough effort into your fallacies to actually make sense. Like the funny joke about closet-queer bondage lust and overwrought Passion plays at this one megachurch with an infamous closet-case former pastor and festering chatter about senior clergy that isn't really funny because closeteering is tragic and torture is torture no matter how sexy they think it is to be whipped and degraded and made to wear a crown of thorns while their bodies are penetrated in new ways they never previously experienced.

    So what is it you need people to underatand about religion? You know, other than fallacy and self-denigrating botchery?

    [fin]
     
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  10. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    if your gonna make strawman arguments could they at least be original or you know good?
     
  11. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    By most Christians, you mean evangelicals? They hardly classify as "most".

    You don't think evangelicals damning them to hell is considering them as inferior?

    The evangelical pastor who is closely tied and involved in the Trump administration has literally damned Jews to hell. Evangelicals consider Jews to be inferior because they are Jews. The very belief system that drives evangelicals to support Israel and demand Jews convert to fulfill their own religious prophecies is at the height of religious supremacism.

    Okay, if you are going to argue like an evangelical, it would behoove you to not call anyone ignorant.

    To the one, historically, antisemitism is deeply connected to Christianity.

    To the other, evangelical Christians who believe that Jews will be damned to hell unless they convert to Christianity is a primary form of antisemitism. Some of the most modern forms of antisemitism stems from evangelical Christians who demand Jews not be Jewish anymore and embrace Christ.

    Evangelical Christians support Israel because it fits into their end time rapture prophecies.

    I have to ask, what is going to happen to the close ties between evangelicals and Israel when Jews refuse to convert to evangelical Christian beliefs?

    Because at some point, Jews in Israel are going to rebel against the demands and none too subtle demands of conversion and then what? At present, Israel needs their support for their own gain, while evangelicals need Israel to satisfy their need for 'The Rapture'. Each has a need that is currently being satisfied by the other. But Jews will not convert (nor should they) and evangelicals will not be satisfied unless they push for a war that will bring about the end of days and Jews convert. So what happens then?
     
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  12. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Atheist take over

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  13. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    Maybe you could quote it, to refresh my memory. Or maybe it never happened.
    While you're at it, maybe you could quote me saying it was always effective, since you seem to be interested in refuting that straw man too.
    So rightwing media restrictions, in an industry overwhelmingly staffed by leftists.
    As of 2013, only 7 percent of [journalists] identified as Republicans
    https://www.politico.com/magazine/s...bubble-real-journalism-jobs-east-coast-215048
    Sounds like a conspiracy theory.
    When was Colombia's economy controlled by drug lords?
    Wasn't the Dirty War a transition from a more nationalized economy to crony capitalism under military dictators?
    Since when does Somalia have a formal economy of any kind?
    Were El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala capitalist?
    Russia has been consolidating from crony capitalism to state capitalism under Putin.
    When did narcos control the Mexican economy?
    Hitler’s administration decreed an October 1937 policy that “dissolved all corporations with a capital under $40,000 and forbade the establishment of new ones with a capital less than $200,000,” which swiftly effected the collapse of one fifth of all small corporations. On July 15, 1933 a law was enacted that imposed compulsory membership in cartels, while by 1934 the Third Reich had mandated a reorganization of all companies and trade associations and formed an alliance with the Nazi regime.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany#Hitler's_views_on_economics
    You can google countless references to the US crash and capitalism.
    So you don't see any connection between evangelicals, what they see as "moral corruption", and the Bible? I can only go so far in connecting the dots for you.

    So you're saying you're completely unaware of secular Jews?
    Many Jewish atheists would reject even this level of ritualized and symbolic identification, instead embracing a thoroughgoing secularism and basing their Jewishness entirely in ethnicity and secular Jewish culture.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_atheism#Secular_Jewish_culture
    That is painful to watch.
    Maybe you've never thought you were going to die, or did suffer prolonged psychological damaged from it. Humans evolved under pretty regular threat to life.
    I'm not talking about what any third party does. I see a lot of claims, but no evidence, in your link, which you should try reading:
    Thorough, impartial, and genuinely independent investigation is needed into the programs of illegal detention, coerced interrogation, and rendition to torture—and the role of top government officials. Those who authorized, ordered, and oversaw torture and other serious violations of international law, as well as those implicated as a matter of command responsibility, should be investigated and prosecuted if evidence warrants.
    https://www.hrw.org/report/2011/07/...ush-administration-and-mistreatment-detainees
    Sure, leftist media antagonistic to Christianity either feel no need to make the distinction, or it's clear that white supremacy is the motivating ideology.
    Jesus accepted his own torture as necessary. The NT repeatedly affirms the duty of the government to punish the evil. And Jesus taught:
    Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.
    Matthew 18:32-33​
    The confirmation bias certainly is.

    In the US they are a plurality, but even Catholic doctrine has extra ecclesiam nulla salus (literally, "outside the Church no salvation").
    So evangelicals, who support Israel, think Jews are inferior? And you think believing in the primacy of their own religion is supremacism? You don't really understand basic things about religion, do you? Not redeemed is not the same as irredeemable.
    And that has what to do with now?
    Can you show mainstream Christian examples?
    No, because the Bible says they are God's chosen people.
    Christianity has no edict to coerce conversion, unlike Islam. Most US Jews are secular, and face no special pressure from mainstream Christianity.
    You really don't have any clue what you're talking about. But thanks for demonstrating it.
     
  14. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    So Christians have even less excuse than Muslims for their violence and coercion.
    No such claim from me.
    Your claim of preponderant staff domination by leftists is ridiculous, and posting as evidence a dearth of Republicans identifies the source of that silly mistake: you have no idea what a "leftist" is.
    Hint: "non-Republican" is not a synonym for "leftist".
    Rightwing media restrictions have been documented at wearisome length on this forum, and they are blatant and obvious and impossible to overlook under even cursory observation - beginning with the simple observation that the US media corporations are almost entirely rightwing corporate entities owned by rightwing corporate capitalists.
    Of course I knew better when I responded to your deflecting irrelevancy re PC vocabulary, rather than simply pointing out that you were dodging again - but one step is enough. I handed you your irrelevantly requested multiple examples of situations in which the problems and defects and major evils of a capitalist economy were reported in the US press without that press labeling the troubled and malfunctioning economy as "capitalist". That was enough of a digression down your tangent - we return to the matter you were ducking:
    For instance: the GOPAC memo; the Dowd memo on Clinton/Trump vocabulary "balance"; the suppression of the terms "fascist" and "capitalist" when referring to rightwing American dysfunction; the suppression of the terms "occupation" and "invasion" and "terrorist" when referring to rightwing American (or Israeli) perps; the promotion and/or mandating of "both sides" vocabulary when reporting on specifically Republican misbehavior; and so forth.

    Evangelicals support Trump because they are ignorant and unprincipled authoritarian opportunists. Same as any other Republican, basically, only with their own odd "opportunities" in mind.
     
  15. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Mod Hat — Reminder: You're not fooling anyone

    Nobody is really a fan of this, because such demands are usually pointless and there is nothing about your posting history suggesting otherwise on this occasion. That is to say, people can answer you all they want, and it is pointless because you are not honest, and do not participate in good faith. The quoted demand, for instance, is a characteristic rhetorical failure:

    • If we back up to #16↑, we see you botching the term ad hominiem; it seems a weird genesis point, but others notice how responding to you is not like having a conversation; Iceaura corrected you in #17↑, to which you responded in #19↑ by shifting focus, including a specific assertion about political correctness. In #22↑, you respond to Billvon (#20↑) by invoking outlier considerations, and while this is a longer article of faith among conservatives, it really does fail, every time, for its inability to properly address empowerment; to wit, if we were arguing over President Hillary Clinton saying, "zir", you might have a point, but these days the question of political correctness is how much white people are hurt if "Mexicans" aren't "animals", or installing a practitioner of "enhanced interrogation techniques" as the head of the CIA; the observable PC in effect is not a left-wing or American-liberal glossary. Indeed, Iceaura (#24↑) reminds that you're already aware of these aspects, and it seems all too common a refrain to find oneself reminding a right-winger they need something more than their own insistent say-so.

    • Which brings us to #25↑, in which you shift focus again by challenging waterboarding as torture: "You don't understand that we waterboard our own Navy Seals as part of their training, and many people/journalists have volunteered to be waterboarded without any long-lasting mental trauma?" PJdude (26↑) responded with a quote from Hitchens, and for some reason you decided to run with misogyny, and, really, who the hell should take you seriously if the best you can come up with is "pansies" and "real men"? We should, of course, note, as Iceaura did in #28↑, that there is a functional difference between a training exercise and what political correctness describes as "enhanced interrogation techniques", and, yes, we are aware that #29↑ arbitrarily excludes that point while providing a better example of a straw man than actually accusing one.

    ― (Really, this thing where you try to imitate people using words you don't understand is just wrecking you. But if you take a look around, there is something that nobody is saying, so if you want to blither about PC, remember that if you intend to discuss these issues, then at some point it would behoove you to actually get a clue about American history and society, because when you accidentally take up these issues and accidentally posture yourself as an ignorant, supremacist in particular, and generally antisocial, and accidentally do it over and over and over again, people do notice. The problem isn't whether one is American or not, or anti-American, it's that your entire clodhopping routine is an embarrassing demonstration of ignorance and self-love imposing itself largely for the sake of its own amusement. This is much similar to the prospect that ignorance itself, the lack of information in one's data set, is not itself so problematic; the actual problem is a matter of behavior, and the relationship between the ignorance and the antisocial conduct. Short form: Ignorance is ignorance, but hiding within a pretense of ignorance is just stupid.)​

    • You might notice the blunt reiteration in #30↑, when Bells summarizes, "In other words, it does not compare."​

    And we should probably take a moment here to note a particular blind retort: PJdude (#26↑) suggested you were "partaking in the rather odious self hating jew slur used against any jew that doesn't toe the israel line", and instead of simply standing on the Bernstein article°, you instead chose, in #27↑, the powerful argument, "What, you've never heard of people hating their own ethnicity?" You literally answered a suggestion of the self-hating Jew trope by asking if one has never heard of the self-hating Jew°°.

    Your response at #35↑, meanwhile, not only bungles its pretense about ethnic Jews and continues its failure to understand the politic of Bernstein's argument, you also reinforce the bit about "pansies" and make clear the point of trolling. In that moment, you compound your failures, as homophobia expressed through feminization—e.g., "pansies" compared to "real men"—is misogyny, so you manage to screw up your own bigotry because you're so anxious to botch the poisoned well yet again. And again. "Who said it was justification or excuse?" you ask. "They were examples rebutting Iceaura's claim that waterboarding was morally incompatible with the Bible." The problem with that argument is that you were challenging waterboarding as torture before post #28 (see #25, 27); your botchery of straw men in #29 is pretty straightforward, your examples are themselves straw men. (Hint: Some of that list will be more relevant when pro-life Christianists argue to poison women with abortifacients to test their marital faith, and then stone them to death for having an abortion. Additionally, your question, "Who said waterboarding wasn't controlled suffocation?" is also a straw man; the propositon was the difference between training simulation and actual torture.

    Your post at #37↑ is throwaway, petulant puffery, even resorting to fallacy in order to strike its self-righteous pantomime pose. I'll even note my own response (#40↑) because your retort (#41↑) is another straw man fallacy. We should also note, at this point, your effort to settle the point about Iceaura and biblical incompatibility: By the breadth of your own survey of Iceaura's words, you have clearly differentiated 'twixt waterboarding and torture. Still, though, the point remains that we can only achieve a "claim that waterboarding was morally incompatible with the Bible" by absolutely botching Iceaura's post at #28. While it is true, dash divisions are controversial syntax, I'm actually hard-pressed to imagine the botchery; you somehow have focused on the generalized example while overlooking the rest of the point: "The intellectual corruption", our neighbor writes, "fostered by evangelical Christianity in America has long been explained on a kind of metaphysical or intellectual level." This is a pretty straightforward point even if there is a lot going into that metaphysical and intellectual dimension: There is a disagreement between the literary record of Christian faith and the practices of American evangelical Christendom. It does not surprise anyone following the discussion to countenance the proposition that you don't understand what Iceaura wrote, nor its implications in reading American history. But the actual sentence you botch reads, with the dash-note exscinded, "The moral corruption of evangelicals has no such partial exculpation." Iceaura and I could probably roll for days on that one, but between us it's not something that comes up, much, so we probably wouldn't get around to it until we absolutely needed to; it's a fascinating discussion, though°°°.

    And as fascinating as your perpetual botchery might be in its own right, you aren't really fooling anyone. Look around; your neighbors are only putting up with you at all because they think they must. Members who have been around for a while have seen this behavior many times before, are aware there is a complex history to why they are expected to put up with it in the first place, and they aren't impressed because you're not fooling anyone. This vapid, self-denigrating troll job is worse than useless, and nobody will fault your neighbors for wondering if perhaps that is the point.

    Generally speaking: 1) Have an affirmative thesis. 2) Be prepared to demonstrate you understand your sources. 3) If you pretend stupidity long enough, people will believe you. 4) Stupidity does not grant special license. 5) Good faith will work wonders around here; give it a try.

    ____________________

    Notes:

    ° Which suggests you do not understand Bernstein's argument, which requires an imposed narrative tacitly presuming an encompassing identity in which Israel is Judaism and Judaism is Israel; see Iceaura at #28: "Apparently you have anti-Israel confused with anti-Semite. Granted the two are often paired - your confusion is easy to explain."

    °° Which suggests you do not understand what you are responding to.

    °°° Which, in turn, would fly well over your head, at least according to the character you play.​
     
    pjdude1219 and Xelasnave.1947 like this.
  16. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,634
    Like I said, a little education would allow you to make more intelligent arguments. (I know, education is not politically correct these days, but perhaps think a little beyond what the government tries to push on you?)
    Nope. I am talking about a comedian making jokes about the president's administration. Including such horrible comments as "But she [Sarah Huckabee] burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smokey eye. Like maybe she's born with it; maybe it's lies. It's probably lies."

    Crucify her! Politically incorrect!
    Nope, you are way off the mark again. See to that education.
     
  17. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    The Word Is "Republican", not "Trump"
    chapter 143

    Doubling down on the hypocrisy, hypocrisy squared and cubed and wrapped in the swaddling clothes of amnesiac oblivion, hypocrisy gifted with riches and honors beyond the capability of the wealthiest Magus who ever followed an honest star,

    Republicans who sold W's presidency and Paul Ryan's tenure as "Christian" (Cheney and all) are now earning fortunes by presenting themselves as moral evaluators of the Christian claims of evangelical Trump supporters - for instance:
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...9d6d4814c4c_story.html?utm_term=.87d2b1d6b9c1
    (that example chosen because it drew historically themed replies in the blogosphere, e.g.:
    http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2018/05/noted-republican-presidential-speech.html)
     
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
  19. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,882
    #supremacism | #WhatTheyVotedFor

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    We should note, since political correctness is on the grill, the latest version of how it works:

    Reality: Raising rent on poor people.

    Politically Correct Conservative Phrasing: "It's our attempt to give poor people a way out of poverty."​

    I know, I wish I was joking, too.

    Housing Secretary Ben Carson says his latest proposal to raise rents would mean a path toward self-sufficiency for millions of low-income households across the United States by pushing more people to find work. For Ebony Morris and her four small children, it could mean homelessness.

    Morris lives in Charleston, South Carolina, where most households receiving federal housing assistance would see their rent go up an average 26 percent, according to an analysis done by Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and provided exclusively to The Associated Press. But her increase would be nearly double that.

    Overall, the analysis shows that in the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas, low-income tenants—many of whom have jobs—would have to pay roughly 20 percent more each year for rent under the plan. That rent increase is about six times greater than the growth in average hourly earnings, putting the poorest workers at an increased risk of homelessness because wages simply haven't kept pace with housing expenses.

    "I saw public housing as an option to get on my feet, to pay 30 percent of my income and get myself out of debt and eventually become a homeowner," said Morris, whose monthly rent would jump from $403 to $600. "But this would put us in a homeless state" ....

    .... The proposal, which needs congressional approval, is the latest attempt by the Trump administration to scale back the social safety net, under the belief that charging more for rent will prompt those receiving federal assistance to enter the workforce and earn more income. "It's our attempt to give poor people a way out of poverty," Carson said in a recent interview with Fox News.


    (Linderman and Fenn↱)

    I can actually offer a really perverse thesis on why Christianists would support such measures. Indeed, we should recall that Secretary Carson postured himself as a Christian, a values candidate; we should also recall that his career outside medicine has involved hawking books to fleece Seventh-Day Adventists and other sectarian flocks.

    But if we consider a note from within the AP article that Charleston, South Carolina, is projected to experience the second most severe rent increases, after Washington, D.C., itself, this proposition—described by one policy analyst as having "no evidence" in support, such that Will Fischer of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities would assert of the increases, "I don't think there's even a plausible theory for why they would encourage work"—starts to make sense.

    Consider that South Carolina is the state where prosecutors will argue↗ a woman has no right to defend herself if she is in a man's home; consider the Republican bogeyman known as single mothers; consider how many routes off the street in Charleston are right into abusive domestic relationships; the evangelical Christianists are hoping for marriage, because that is where they believe women belong.

    The people most hurt by this will be women of color and their children. And as far as Ben Carson is concerned, he is doing the Lord's work. It's not about South Carolina per se, but, rather, for these usurpers, the "Evangelicals", everything is about judgment and having Godly authority in earthly realms, that they might put the unsatisfactory in their proper place. When it comes to taking it out on women and people of color, why wouldn't Post-Paulist usurpers appreciate the necessity of judgmental cruelty as exemplary of Christian humility and compassion? If there is no earthly reward in it for them, why would they bother pretending to believe in the first place?
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Linderman, Juliet and Larry Fenn. "Analysis: HUD plan would raise rents for poor by 20 percent". Associated Press. 7 June 2018. APNews.com. 7 June 2018. http://bit.ly/2JCHDjs
     

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