Conservative Christians still praying for Obama's death

Ah, Jesus. I like him very much. But, he no help with curveball. (I know that came BEFORE, but that's my favorite part.)

 

No, I'm saying "up your butt, Jobu."

 

Part of the problem in the "policing your own" argument is the many factions that Protestants have split off into. Who are these guys? Sally's Bible Church in Podunkville, MO? I feel pretty confident that if any member of the Catholic Church, the Episcopalian, Anglican, PCA, Southern Baptist, etc. would denounce this quite quickly.

It's essentially the radical Muslim/ normal muslim argument.

 

Yep. Which is why the "police your own" argument is total garbage. Not surprising that the posters who use it are pretty crappy, too.

 

Um. Maybe I missed some irony or sarcasm, but didn't you use it on the previous page?

 

He was being sarcastic. He was mocking the user here who basically blamed other Muslims for not stopping the Ft. Hood terrorist attack.

 

Ah, proof I only click on threads I'm interested in reading.

 

I find this line of reasoning tiring. What is a "normal" muslim? Or a "normal" christian?

I mean, how can subscribing to the ideology that everyone who does not think like you is doomed to hell anything but consistently "radical" no matter how you look at it?

 

Maybe you need to better police your own...self.

PS - everyone knows Episcopalians are evil. The yare the most exclusionary and offensive protestants ever.

 

The dichotomy is that the "normal" believer might think someone who doesn't "think like you" (and not saying I prescribe to this line of thinking) is damning themselves to hell, but you aren't helping in the process.

The "non-normal" ideologue then takes it upon themselves to intervene (usually in violent fashion) to force someone to think differently, or to send them to hell themselves.

I would argue that the normal Muslim religion has greater propensity to lead to the extreme form based off of different understandings of relationship to God (the idea of subservience vs. obedience); different understandings of love, etc. Admittedly, I am not completely well versed on all of Muslim theology, so this is a completely asinine statement for me to make, but I think the generalizations for the most part are fair. I'm just not interested in going that deep into Muslim theology because I just don't have time.

Rimmy, you do know that by using that argument against me, you have now made yourself a crappy poster?

 

Let me start by saying that I agree with you.

Unfortunately, there are a LOT of people (example: most people that watch Faux "News") that don't make this distinction. You and I are aware that there is a wide gulf between radicals and mainstream Muslims, but all we seem to hear about is screeching for Muslim leaders to "police their own" or denounce the unconscionable acts of the radicals along with conclusions about how, since they haven't heard the denouncing that does go on, all Muslims are complicit.

The calls for Christian leaders to denounce the people who would wear such a t-shirt or express such sentiments are the same thing. If Christian leaders would do this, it would allow us to see which Christians are acting ... well ... Christian.

 

Wasn't he blowing up the Death Star at the time?

 

There are alternatives to fighting.

 

Sorry for the tangent but I am curious about this. How is the Christian relationship to God different than the Muslim? Do Christians consider themselves subservient to God or the act of faith as a submission to God?

 

Ah, but I was doing it with a great sense of detatched irony, thus it makes me an awesome poster. You should know better.

 

That's because you know that if you strike me down I will only become more powerful than you can imagine..

 

In my completely limited understanding, the general tradition from Christianity has been obedience, wherein the will freely chooses to obey a higher power (this is why obedience is so important in monasteries, seminaries, etc. because they are attempting to inculcate this virtue). Once again, the little bit of studying I've done, in Islam they idea is more of submission, subservience simply because God is more powerful. It is not viewed in the same way as the Christians, because it comes from a relationship based off of power, not a relationship based off of love. Christians are supposed to be obedient because their wills are transformed to see God's love, and to want to obey his word because it brings them more in love with the divine, and by result, our fellow human beings.

Once again, this is from my completely shallow studies of Islam which consists of conversations with friends who have studied it slightly more in depth than I.

 

You know that I know that, which makes your admittance totally lame.

 

don't be ridiculous. he was riding a dinosaur.

 

Understood. My point was simply that any mindset that claims righteousness of a caliber fit to damn all others to hell is, objectively, radical. Accordingly, I'd argue that good "christians" should "call out" all those who propose to make this distinction themselves, thereby usurping the authority of the god they presume to live under.

While I'm not confident enough in my understanding of islam to endorse your position regarding subservience vs obedience, I can certainly understand the viewpoint and agree with it in principle. More to the point, it is bloody obvious that islam has a much higher propensity for encouraging the version of radicalism you mentioned above. I'd argue much of that could be cultural subversion of religious doctrine, but that's endemic to all religions and only "fuel to the fire", so to speak.