Freedom of Dissent
CNN writes that Arab Spring nations don't yet grasp freedom of dissent
Well, duh...
For discussion purposes...
For how long have Arab nations lived in a highly religious culture where respect for God in a very high value? Does anyone here really expect this to change trivially?Originally Posted by CNN
Pointless and Ugly
It has everything to do with the situation being discussed. We have a culture clash between a democratic western tradition nation and highly religious cultures just beginning to cast off authoritarian autocratic values. Each culture is firm in the belief that their way of perceiving the world is the only possible virtuous way. An intelligent discussion of the conflict requires a genuine attempt to understand the other culture.
If no one grows beyond my perspective is right, all other perspectives are wrong, and the correct solution is to insult anyone with a wrong perspective, the conversation remains pointless and ugly.
Hold on. That is NOT what is being discussed, although I understand the confusion. What is being discussed is a clash between the question of whether a filmmaker had a legal right to produce and distribute a film, and whether or not he should have done so; correspondingly, whether the U.S. embassy personnel, in recognizing that the film was an offensive piece of crap and publicly saying so, was somehow "justifying" or "excusing" the attacks on U.S. embassies in the Middle East. All of the participants in this discussion, all of the main actors, are American, part of a single culture; the Muslims who are engaging in the attacks themselves are NOT INVOLVED in this discussion. They are merely backdrop.
Culture clash, therefore, does not enter the picture, and by introducing it, you are merely muddying the waters.
"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?"
My blog: https://brianrushwriter.wordpress.com/
The Order Master (volume one of Refuge), a science fantasy. Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GZZWEAS
Smashwords link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/382903
if so-called "christians" act like bigots and ignoramuses, they should be criticized, in whatever format the critic chooses. that's real free speech.
and quit the victim game already.
hypermasculinist "christianity" is not "passive" when it treats women like chattel and actively denies them equal rights, or when it demonizes the lgbt community. so in what way are those characters different from radical islamists? they've been known to blow up family planning clinics, verbally and physically assault gay people, and shoot up non-christian houses of worship.
the guy who put this movie out is a cowardly douchebag, hiding behind the first amendment and geographical distance from the people he's insulting. and i'd say this to his face if i had the opportunity.
Which equal "right" are you referring to here? Abortion? Yeah, that's called murder in Christianity. I don't have the 'right' to murder you or you murder me. Christians consider birth to begin at conception - so your argument has no weight if you're referring to abortion as a "right". To treat it any differently would be to misunderstand the teachings of Christianity - and to say that abortionist doctors should be killed or that those who do have an abortion should be treated as second-class citizens is also a misunderstanding of the faith. Am I saying you should follow the tenants of Christianity? No. But this is what it teaches.
Christianity teaches that what the LGBT community is doing is an abomination against God and is wrong. It doesn't mean that Christianity teaches that LGBT people should be treated as less than human - that's a misunderstanding of Christianity. Am I saying you should follow the tenants of Christianity? No. But this is what it teaches.
I'd question the tenacity of someone claiming to being a follower of "Christianity" or "Islam" who does these things. Because if they do they are certainly not following the teachings of either religion. Most Christians and most Muslims are good people who actually understand their faith and want to do good for others. There are extremists in all religions (or lack of religion) but they are exactly this - misguided extremists.
You're absolutely right and I agree with you here 100%. I feel the same exact way towards the cowardly douchebag by the name of Bill Maher who does the same thing and incites the exact same type of hatred. And you better believe I'd say the same thing to Bill Maher's face if I had the chance.
The absolute hypocracy is that when Bill Maher does it towards Christianity he is praised by the left - when this is done towards other religions that aren't Christianity they are lauded as monsters by the left.
j.p.
Last edited by JDFP; 09-14-2012 at 01:38 PM.
"And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth." -- Raymond Carver
"A page of good prose remains invincible." -- John Cheever
I'm a bit confused by all the references to Bill Maher. If he were doing something comparable to what this filmmaker seems to have done, he would be (for example) calling Jesus a drunk who visited prostitutes regularly and called on his followers to masturbate in public. Or something comparable. I haven't seen more than a fraction of his shows, but I'm pretty sure if he had done something like that it would have been headline news. Has he?
"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?"
My blog: https://brianrushwriter.wordpress.com/
The Order Master (volume one of Refuge), a science fantasy. Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GZZWEAS
Smashwords link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/382903
you lie.
many christians do not consider life to begin at conception. and those that do seem to feel that they need to put their belief into the law of the land. the result being that women would be forced to carry children they do not want -- even as the result of rape (if you listen to the todd akins and paul ryans of the party).
none of you guys will acknowledge that this is where the gop is heading.
and as for the gay community, again, the homophobic bigotry has been debunked. right here..
give up the hate. give up the lies. you'll feel better. and you won't be so scared. fear sucks as a religious motivator. christianity needs to clean up its mess.
Rachel Maddow debunked any connection between the dreadful flick and the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi. She is left-wing, but as a rule she gets the facts right. She exposed that someone involved in the film had a criminal record for drug trafficking (meth), that the film was produced under a pseudonym (directors are allowed to use the pseudonym "Alan Smithee", whose anagram is "The Alias Man" for a badly-altered film whose version they disavow) and that "talent" in the film was deceived about its purpose. The story got worse, and not better.Here's a quick one, apologies for the conservative authorship.
Misplaced Blame for the Embassy Attacks
What it shows is that the leftist brain is pathological, not rational. They celebrate attacks on Christians put out by major Hollywood studios, but they want people jailed for releasing a low budget YouTube video attacking Islam.
Most of the attacks on Christianity in film are really parodies of bad treatments of Bible stories such as The Greatest Story Ever Told or critiques of bad characters who had power within Christian churches. Some Popes have been simply evil, like Alexander VI (Cesare Borgia)... and there have been plenty of disputes between rival factions and sects. One can see A Man For All Seasons as blasphemous for its derogatory treatment of Henry VIII if one is a militant Protestant, or arguably the most pro-Catholic film ever made.
Nobody needs be jailed for the dreadful bilge that might appear next on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Shame would be enough. Islamic countries that routinely prohibit malign treatments of Islam can prohibit this incompetent, inflammatory excrement.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Sigh. No sir, I do not lie. And you can bite your tongue in stating such a thing. Let me rephrase and clarify: Mainstream Christianity teaches these things. There are certainly fringes in all religions.
As far as the rest of your post I have no intention of touching as that's a matter of perspective and adds nothing to the conversation.
j.p.
"And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth." -- Raymond Carver
"A page of good prose remains invincible." -- John Cheever
Where is that in the Bible? Do all Christians believe that? Is that what all Christians have always believed?
Aquinas and Augustine argued that the soul enters the fetus about 40 days after conception. Otherwise, if the "soul" is created at conception, identical twins would be sharing one.
Numbers 5: 12 to 31 - Abort the bastard children
Genesis 38:24 - Execute the pregnant prostitute
Deuteronomy 22: 21 - Execute all adulterers, pregnant or not
Leviticus, 27: 1 to 8 - Humans younger than one month have no monetary value to God
"Now therefore kill every male among the little ones." Numbers 31:17
"Slay both man and woman, infant and suckling." 1 Samuel 15:3
"Dash their children, and rip up their women with child." 2 Kings 8:12
"Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled and their wives ravished." Isaiah 13:16
"They shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eyes shall not spare children." Isaiah 13:18
"Slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children." Ezekiel 9:6
"Their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up." Hosea 13:16
One more: The punishment for abortion shall be a monetary fine to be determined by the father of the child (no misogyny here!).
"When men strive together and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined according to as the woman's husband shall lay upon him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe." Exodus 21: 22-25
Last edited by JohnMc82; 09-14-2012 at 02:45 PM.
Those words, "temperate and moderate", are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good, is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.
'82 - Once & always independent
OK, so there's one case -- but you said that the left "universally" blamed the video, which is false. You need to reign in your hyperbole.
Let's agree that there are two categories of disagreement: facts and opinions. Opinions can vary, but facts should be, well, factual. Since that is not always the case. proceeding in a rational manner is precluded when facts are open to ones POV. If someone says their car runs on holy water, I'm fully justified in calling them wrong. If they are dognmatic about it, is there any reason to play nice? After all, facts are not variable, so accepting them as variable does them a huge injustice. Truth deserves to be honored.
So I draw the line at misrepresentation of easily verifiable information. If the rendering is unintentional, then I'll be nice about it. If not, I won't. In no way does this represent an issue of unshared world view, but it doens represnet the state of the conversation far too often these days.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
Let's understand the diference between censorship (stopping the publication or release of offensive material) and incitement to violence (which may or may not be involved here). We don't know why this was produced and released, but doing either with the intent of trigerring violent reactions from others is not covered under the free speech right.Here's a quick one, apologies for the conservative authorship.
Misplaced Blame for the Embassy Attacks
What it shows is that the leftist brain is pathological, not rational. They celebrate attacks on Christians put out by major Hollywood studios, but they want people jailed for releasing a low budget YouTube video attacking Islam.
In short, you can insult me but you can't slander me; you can ridicule me, but you can't foment a lynch mob. If you have trouble seeing the difference, you have issues living in a free society.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
But, if one has trouble seeing the difference between making a movie and rounding up a lynch mob...
Those words, "temperate and moderate", are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good, is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.
'82 - Once & always independent
Consider another font type ane size ... please! M&L taking the absurd to its illogical end.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
Ensoulment
I just spent a few minutes reviewing the Wiki article on 'Ensoulment'. It turns out that there have been a lot of opinions held over the years. People are allowed to have opinions, but how can one claim objective truth if one cannot detect souls? Yet, people have very strong opinions that exist at a values level.
Wouldn't it be embarrassing if the car split the holy water into oxygen and hydrogen, and the car was powered by cold fusion? If one poured enough holy water into a car, the flow of water could store energy in a big rubber band... I'm not saying you wouldn't have good solid grounds for skepticism, though.
But at bottom, values exist. I will act as if the Creator gave all humans certain unalienable rights, and among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I honestly believe one ends up with a better culture if one embraces the above and similar ideas. However, are they objective observable confirmable fact? Can one observe the Creator? Are we really sure he doesn't favor the divine right of kings? Did Jefferson put words in his mouth?
Many a culture might have base core principles that seem solidly unshakably right to members of the culture, but are not provable. It is possible or ought to be possible to settle questions of fact -- though see the Global Warming thread for an example of how values can trump fact -- but value conflicts are something different.
Regarding whether being anti-choice on abortion is a "mainstream" Christian belief: Unfortunately it's very difficult to find polls that ask what I consider the right question about abortion rights, namely "do you think abortion should remain legal in the first trimester of pregnancy." Instead, one finds vaguely-worded questions involving "all circumstances" or "some circumstances," plus a few specifics like rape, incest, and when the mother's life or health are endangered.
The reason I feel strongly that the "first trimester" business is the right question to ask is that that's when the overwhelming majority of legal abortions are performed, and also because a person could (and I suspect many do) find abortion acceptable in the early part of pregnancy when the embryo/fetus is still not very far along and doesn't have any capacity to think or feel, but have more problems with it late in gestation when it really would amount to "killing a baby." I did find one reference to the split by time:
http://www.lifenews.com/2011/07/25/g...ing-abortions/
"Gallup also asked Americans when they though abortions should be legal and found Americans, by a 62-35 percent split, want first-trimester abortions legal." You have to scroll way down the page, but it's there.
According to other polls, 80% of Americans call themselves Christian. Now, even if ALL non-Christians are included in the 62% who want abortion legal in the first trimester (without restrictions), which is of course not true, that still would mean pro-choice Christian Americans represent right at 42% of the nation (62-20). That in turn means that 52.5% of Christians are pro-choice in this sense. Since NOT all non-Christians are pro-choice, that means that more than half of American Christians, a larger majority of the faith as practiced here than 52.5% are, up to 62% assuming the distribution of pro-choice people between Christians and non-Christians is proportional which is also probably not true, so the final tally is somewhere between 52.5% and 62% of Christians being pro-choice -- a clear majority.
Is it in any way reasonable to dismiss a position held by more than half the followers of a religion as a "fringe" position?
Last edited by Brian Rush; 09-14-2012 at 03:17 PM.
"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?"
My blog: https://brianrushwriter.wordpress.com/
The Order Master (volume one of Refuge), a science fantasy. Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GZZWEAS
Smashwords link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/382903
I know several former Marines.
They may be different; they may not. Then again, a really putrid movie could be the intellectual equivalent of a cyanide capsule.
Death by tasteless blather ... certainly a hanging offense in my book.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
If you have one of these:
let's talk.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
H-m-m-m. Do they all have those thread marks from screwing their hats on their jarheads?
Just asking.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
Well Maher produced a "documentary" called Religulous in 2008. I havent personally seen it only have read a few things about it. What from I've read he goes around to different places and interviews religious people and mocks them etc. The point is to debunk religion. he makes some sort of statement to the effect that to "save mankind, we must kill religion". Apparently he really hits Islam hard. Im sure if thats true, it would qualify as "blasphemy" in Islam.
It's mainly in reference to Maher's film Religulous, a mediocre documentary that aimed to be provocative but really wasn't. It suffered from the same thing that most of Bill's productions do: Too much Maher and not enough everybody else. In most of the segments I found myself wishing that Maher would just shut the fuck up and let those being interviewed speak. The bullshit in some segments was self-evident and did not require his constant quips and banal attempts at humor. The nonsense some folks speak about in the film was far more amusing and entertaining than he was. Still there was some good give-and-take stuff in his interviews. Maher unfortunately suffers from an overdeveloped sense of ego and it spread all over the film.
A good article from Dick Morris about why the polls you quote cannot be taken too seriously...
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...in_115452.html
The most relevent portion:
"But it's not really a tie at all. All pollsters are using 2008 models of voter turnout. Some are combining '04 and '08 but skewing their samples to '08 numbers. African Americans cast 11 percent of the national vote in '04, but their participation swelled to 13 percent in '08. These 2 million new black voters backed Obama overwhelmingly. Will they come out in such numbers again? Will college and under 30 voters do so as well? Will Latino turnout be at historic highs? All these questions have to be answered "yes" for the polling samples so widely published to be accurate.
For example, when a poll shows an Obama lead among likely voters of, say 47-45, it is based on an assumption that blacks will cast 13 percent of the vote. But the lack of enthusiasm among Obama's base for his candidacy and their doubts about the economy make an 11 percent black turnout more likely. In this event, Romney would actually win in this sample by 46-45.
And then there is the enthusiasm gap. All recent polling suggests that Republican- and GOP-leaning Independents are 13 points more enthusiastic and following the race more closely than their Democratic counterparts. If the grassroots do their job, this will yield a stronger Romney vote."
Oh and Rasmussen, the liberals love to mock but was almost dead on in 2008:
Romney 48% Obama 45%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ..._tracking_poll
