Are Evangelicals the New KKK?

How about the fact that he will not hire anyone from the Islamic faith in his cabinet dddooo?? Do you see that as a comment insulting and full of bigotry???

 

Let us pray...

Lord.. lead us down the path of righteousness to your everlasting truth. Make us deaf to the anathema that spews like serpent's venom from the mouths of blasphemers. Make us blind to the illusory temptations of a sensuous and lustful world. Guide our pencils to the name of your true champion when we hold that fateful ballot in hand so that we may restore our beloved nation to the state of grace it enjoyed when its people were one and your true followers all.

Lord.. silence the yappy malcontents, whatever their color or creed, so that there may be peace in the land and in our hearts and on PBS and CNN.

And give us this day our daily drugs and alcohol so that we may endure until the day of our salvation.

And that's about it for now. Thanx in advance.

Amen

 

Does not organized anything tend to do this, brother Thunderdog?

 

True, but religion has a particularly colorful past in this regard. That color being red. And while those in positions of leadership may have used religion as a device for their own political ends, they relied on starry-eyed true believers to do their bidding.

The bandying about of religion on the campaign trail is not all that different.

 

...is why Independence is the true American tradition, not organized religion

 

I think what he was saying in the second quote is that the religion of secularism is wrong because its whole thrust is to deny a place in public life for traditional religion. We have the ACLU filing suits all over the country against religious monuments, Christmas manger scenes, public prayers,etc. Romney is saying that religion is not like pornography, something that we grudgingly tolerate but keep in private.

Religious people are not the ones trying to force secularists to conform. Evangelicals are not filing lawsuits trying to get federal judges to force secularists to pray or go to church. I don't see it as particularly horrible for a secularist to have to hear a prayer or see a Christmas display. Yet they want to deny such things to the 80 % of the country that appreciate them.

ps. Olbermann is the single most hate-filled bigot on cable. He is a parasite, pathetically trying to get viewers by stalking O'Reilly. He is walking proof of the ugly damage that Bush Derangement Syndrome can do to a person if left untreated.

 

I agree that's what he is saying. In other words, if a religion advocates something he dislikes (how about polygamy), then it's the wrong religion and people are not allowed to believe it. That's called bigotry.

 

Secular Europe’s Merits
By ROGER COHEN
Published: December 13, 2007

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland

The cathedral here, on which work began in the 12th century, was once the largest in Scotland, until a mob of reformers bent on eradicating lavish manifestations of “Popery” ransacked the place in 1559, leaving gulls to swoop through the surviving facade.

Europe’s cathedrals are indeed “so inspired, so grand, so empty,” as Mitt Romney, a Mormon, put it last week in charting his vision of a faith-based presidency. Some do not survive at all. The Continent has paid a heavy price in blood for religious fervor and decided some time ago, as a French king put it, that “Paris is well worth a Mass.”

Romney, a Republican presidential candidate, was dismissive of European societies “too busy or too ‘enlightened’ to venture inside and kneel in prayer.” He thereby pointed to what has become the principal transatlantic cultural divide.

Europeans still take the Enlightenment seriously enough not to put it inside quote marks. They have long found an inspiring reflection of it in the first 16 words of the American Bill of Rights of 1791: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Thomas Jefferson saw those words as “building a wall of separation between church and state.” So, much later, did John F. Kennedy, who in a speech predating Romney’s by 47 years, declared: “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.”

The absolute has proved porous. The U.S. culture wars have produced what David Campbell of Notre Dame University called: “the injection of religion into politics in a very overt way.”

Much too overt for Europeans, whose alarm at George W. Bush’s presidency has been fed by his allusions to divine guidance — “the hand of a just and faithful God” in shaping events, or his trust in “the ways of Providence.”

Such beliefs seem to remove decision-making from the realm of the rational at the very moment when the West’s enemy acts in the name of fanatical theocracy. At worst, they produce references to a “crusade” against those jihadist enemies. God-given knowledge is scarcely amenable to oversight.

But Bush is no transient phenomenon; he is the expression of a new American religiosity. Romney’s speech and the rapid emergence of the anti-Darwin Baptist minister Mike Huckabee as a rival suggest how estranged the American zeitgeist is from the European.

At a time when growing numbers of Americans identify themselves as born-again evangelicals, and creationism is no joke, Romney’s essentially pitted the faithful against the faithless while attempting to merge Mormonism in mainstream Christianity. Where Kennedy said he believed in a “president whose religious views are his own private affair,” Romney pledged not to “separate us from our religious heritage.”

“Religiosity now seems at least as important for public office as leadership qualities,” said Karl Kaiser, a German political scientist. “The entrance condition for the American presidential race is being religious. If you’re not, you have no chance, which troubles Europeans.”

Of course, the religious heritage of which Romney spoke is real. The Puritans’ vision of America as “a city upon a hill” was based on a covenant with God. As the Bill of Rights was formulated, George Washington alluded in his Thanksgiving Proclamation to “that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.”

Religion informed America’s birth. But its distancing from politics was decisive to the republic’s success. Indeed, the devastating European experience of religious war influenced the founders’ thinking. That is why I find Romney’s speech and the society it reflects far more troubling than Europe’s vacant cathedrals.

Romney allows no place in the United States for atheists. He opines that, “Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.” Yet secular Sweden is free while religious Iran is not. Buddhism, among other great Oriental religions, is forgotten.

He shows a Wikipedia-level appreciation of other religions, admiring “the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims” and “the ancient traditions of the Jews.” These vapid nostrums suggest his innermost conviction of America’s true faith. A devout Christian vision emerges of a U.S. society that is in fact increasingly diverse.

Romney rejects the “religion of secularism,” of which Europe tends to be proud. But he should consider that Washington is well worth a Mass. The fires of the Reformation that reduced St. Andrews Cathedral to ruin are fires of faith that endure in different, but no less explosive, forms. Jefferson’s “wall of separation” must be restored if those who would destroy the West’s Enlightenment values are to be defeated.

 

How much general kindness is there EVER between political candidates?

Funny, what respect do others show for Evangelicals? Are they portrayed positively by scientists, the media, liberal or secular sources?

It all depends on how we view the world. Fact is, people aren't so "christian" to each other, in general. Everyone generally shoots first and asks questions later.

 

Romney's "religion of secularism" is absurd on its face. What he's doing is redefining secularism so he can recast it as Godless and evil.

Secularism is pro-religion, not anti-religion! Many people don't get this. It is the only framework which allows multiple religions to coexist peacefully under a democratic government, and by doing so elevates religion above the fray. Look at the Islamic nations: once religion becomes rooted in government, religious minorities are persecuted and oppressed. Secularism is what the founding fathers intended, a system of government that is religion-neutral that allows all types of faiths to flourish in society.

"Religion of secularism" joins "America is a Christian nation" as propaganda from the religious right. The founding fathers were largely Universalists and Deists -- they believed in a single God and rejected the Trinity. Notice how the Constitution and our currency mention God but not Jesus.