Otto -- interesting points. i will point out this though...yes, Jesus met sinners with compassion...but he generally concluded by saying their sins were forgiven, and by telling them to go and sin no more. that response of attempting to "go and sin no more" is a response to a gift, basically. he never patted them on the back and said, "hey great job with that prostitution thing!" to the contrary, he called for a change in their life. not to be mean or authoritarian, of course...but rather because he knew what REAL life was...and is...and knew that those things lead to a life that was troubled. i do believe that Christ is unique. I do believe that Christ was the Messiah...that he is the savior of the world...that he was the "blessing to all people" that God promised Abraham would come from his lineage. i believe he was crucified and resurrected. and i believe the Holy Spirit still inspires people to walk with God, today. i realize that makes me a bit of a freak...but it is what it is. i believe it. i believe it fully. and i believe that my response to that gift is to love people the way Christ did...and to share the good news of God reaching out to man through Christ. I find a peace in Christ that I don't know elsewhere...a sense of eternal perspective beyond the troubles of my everyday life. I don't want to force that on anyone...but it's so awesome in my life, that I can't help but share it, because I wish everyone could experience it. If you don't want to, that's fine...that's between you and God. But for me, this isn't just about a ticket to the pearly gates...it's about my life right now.
Max, please explain to me why Evangelical Christians in the US are nearly unique among Christians in the world in being so eager to kill Iraqis. It seems so unChristian.
glynch -- the church, as you've pointed out, is clearly divided on the issue. there's the whole "just war" doctrine that's been used for centuries now. i struggle with it personally. and again, i don't know what evangelical Christian means. i think that term can be applied to lots of groups...if it's just, "do you go to church regularly" then i'm guilty as charged. if it's, "do you share your faith with others," than i'm gulty as charged. so i have a hard time arguing under labels like that. i don't think people fit in neat, convenient political labels like that. even at my church, there would be great divide on an issue like this. i very clearly don't have all the answers, glynch. i don't think most christians relish in the idea of war. the question is whether or not it's a defensive war. i know how you feel on that issue. the other question is whether you view it as a war of liberation. i don't think God smiles at inactivity in the face of a dictator....i don't think God would say, "please don't go hurt those Nazis. maybe we should all be nice." whether or not saddam rises to that level for you, or not, is for you to decide. i would also point out that i go to church with people who aren't really christians...people who have no real life following of Christ...no real discipleship. so if you polled those people and found they were church-goers, i don't know that you'd find that Christ was really all that important to them in their daily lives...rather, it's just a social event they show up to for various reasons...this is particularly true in the south. and very frustrating to me.
I do find it interesting that there appears to be a much stronger 'christian right' in the US than in many other nations. One that I find intollerant. More interested in looking after their vision of 'values' than improving the life of the poor or disadvantaged.
How? The polls have said that evangelical Christians in the U.S. voted for Bush because of values etc. So in order to get someone who might be able to make policy on those issues they were willing to vote for someone who took are country to war based on bad intelligence, and ended up killing thousands of people in another country that wasn't a real threat to our nation. Glynch asked why that group was willing to do such a thing. Why was the question obscene?
If you really can't tell: Glynch did not ask why "evangelicals" were willing to support a president who had brought them into a war based on bad intelligence and ended up killing thousands. He asked why they were eager to kill Iraqis. As if, their espoused goal was simply to kill and not that those deaths were a byproduct of some other endeavor. It was a baiting (and stupid) question. Max was mature enough to ignore the implication, but to wax ignorant about it is, well... I know you know better.
ok...this is the problem. it seems some of you see this as fact...the threat part. i'm not gonna argue whether it was or wasn't...but if the perception, rather real or imagined, is that there is a threat, than you're talking apples and oranges. clearly there were people out there who felt like iraq might pose a threat...or that a democratic iraq would be a real kick in the teeth to middle east terrorism. you can disagree with that all you want...but it's subjective. if you assume all of your arguments are correct...then, yes...everyone else in the world who disagrees with you is wrong. i think the real problem the left is having right now is that it absolutely assumes that all of its arguments are correct, and that everyone else is just plain dumb. there's an arrogance about that which is quite unattractive.
Well, speaking for "the left" and or "liberalism", whatever the hell that actually means, (generally I find those terms are used far more often by Republicans to caricature rather than any doctrinal purposes), I can say that you miss an important point. In the arena of ideas, at least legally, it's true in the general sense that everybodyhas a right to their own opinion, etc., Opinions that are not based on an accurate underpinning of the facts, however, do not have, in an intellectual sense, as much value as those that are. In the area of Iraq especially, the facts assumed/believed, etc, by one side have been almost entirely vindicated, while the facts and conclusions of another have proven to be almost entirely false, with bloody, disastrous consequences. However, a large segment of the populace apparently still believes in the disproven set of facts, months after they are disproven. Is it rude or elitist for me to accord their opinion less weight? I suppose so. However, it is also logical and intelliectually necessary in any reasoned analysis. Again, with respect to Iraq, I don't see how the various generals, intellignece professionals, and other figures andinstitutions, (basically anybody not currently in the bush administration) can be caricatured as members of "the Left" when in fact many of htem are members of "the Right".
all that's fine and good...but ignores a couple of facts: 1. many people believe, even if you don't, that a budding democracy in iraq would be good for US national security...that it would provide an alternative in the middle east that would help to eradicate some of the seeds of terrorism; 2. that the UN, itself, believed that Saddam had weapons he couldn't account for...there is no doubt in anyone's mind that he was unable to account for weapons the inspectors had found previously. no doubt. where they hell did they go? the next step is that he would have gotten those into the hands of terrorists...i have no way of knowing if that's a real possibility or not, but it's certainly not a possiblity i want our commander in chief ignoring. again...this is about perception. people had different perceptions going into this thing...and people have different perceptions about it now. but as JV points out...this whole little argument here started with glynch's assertion that evangelical christians are excited about killing iraqis. as if that was the pure goal...we just wanna line up iraqis and kill 'em.
Some Christians are eager to kill, some are not. Maybe a better question would be why would Christians be eager for war? Glynch, I posted this essay written by my favorite American Christian author in the "Americans are sooo religious" thread a while back, it might help answer your question: The Root of War Is Fear - by Thomas Merton In 1961 the American Trappist monk Thomas Merton entered the struggle against war with his essay “The Root of War Is Fear.” Read in the context of today’s conflict with Iraq, the essay seems prophetic, haunting and insightful. Crossroads Publishing Company and The Thomas Merton Foundation are making available excerpts from that essay so that readers today can consider Merton’s point that the wellsprings of war lie within each person as much as with a particular political situation. By THOMAS MERTON The present war crisis is something we have made entirely for and by ourselves. There is in reality not the slightest logical reason for war, and yet the whole world is plunging headlong into frightful destruction, and doing so with the purpose of avoiding war and preserving peace! This is a true war-madness, an illness of the mind and the spirit that is spreading with a furious and subtle contagion all over the world. Of all the countries that are sick, America is perhaps the most grievously afflicted. This is a nation that claims to be fighting for religious truth along with freedom and other values of the spirit. Truly we have entered the “post-Christian era” with a vengeance. What is the place of the Christian in all this? Is he simply to fold his hands and resign himself to the worst, accepting it as the inescapable will of God and preparing himself to enter heaven with a sigh of relief? Should he open up the Apocalypse and run out into the street to give everyone his idea of what is happening? Or worse still, join in the madness of the war makers, calculating how by a “first strike,” the glorious Christian West can eliminate atheistic Communism for all time and usher in the millennium? What are we to do? The duty of the Christian in this crisis is to strive with all his power and intelligence, with his faith, hope in Christ and love for God and man, to do the one task that God has imposed upon us in the world today. That task is to work for the total abolition of war. There can be no question that unless war is abolished the world will remain constantly in a state of madness and desperation in which, because of the immense destructive power of modern weapons, the danger of catastrophe will be imminent and probably at every moment everywhere. We may never succeed in this campaign but whether we succeed or not the duty is evident. It is the great Christian task of our time. Everything else is secondary, for the survival of the human race itself depends on it. We must at least face this responsibility and do something about it. And the first job of all is to understand the psychological forces at work in ourselves and in society. At the root of all war is fear, not so much the fear men have of one another as the fear they have of everything. It is not merely that they do not trust one another: They do not even trust themselves. … They cannot trust anything because they have ceased to believe in God. It is not only our hatred of others that is dangerous but also and above all our hatred of ourselves: particularly that hatred of ourselves which is too deep and too powerful to be consciously faced. For it is this that makes us see our own evil in others and unable to see it in ourselves. … As if this were not enough, we make the situation much worse by artificially intensifying our sense of evil, and by increasing our propensity to feel guilt even for things that are not in themselves wrong. In all these ways, we build up such an obsession with evil, both in ourselves and in others, that we waste all our mental energy trying to account for this evil, to punish it, to exorcise it, or to get rid of it in any way we can. We drive ourselves mad with our preoccupation and in the end there is no outlet left but violence. We have to destroy something or someone. By that time, we have created for ourselves a suitable enemy, a scapegoat in whom we have invested all the evil in the world. He is the cause of every wrong. He is the fomenter of all conflict. If he can only be destroyed, conflict will cease, evil will be done with, there will be no more war. … In our refusal to accept the partially good intentions of others and work with them (of course prudently and with resignation to the inevitable imperfection of the result) we are unconsciously proclaiming our own malice, our own intolerance, our own lack of realism, our own ethical and political quackery. Perhaps in the end the first real step toward peace would be a realistic acceptance of the fact that our political deals are perhaps to a great extent illusions and fictions to which we cling, out of motives that are not always perfectly honest: that because of this we prevent ourselves from seeing any good or any practicability in the political ideas of our enemies -- which may of course be in many ways even more illusory and dishonest than our own. We will never get anywhere unless we can accept the fact that politics is an inextricable tangle of good and evil motives in which, perhaps, the evil predominate but where one must continue to hope doggedly in what little good can still be found. … I believe the basis for valid political action can only be the recognition that the true solution to our problems is not accessible to any one isolated party or nation but that all must arrive at it by working together. … We must try to accept ourselves whether individually or collectively, not only as perfectly good or perfectly bad, but in our mysterious, unaccountable mixture of good and evil. We have to stand by the modicum of good that is in us without exaggerating it. We have to defend our real rights, because unless we respect our own rights we will certainly not respect the rights of others. But at the same time we have to recognize that we have willfully or otherwise trespassed on the rights of others. We must be able to admit this not only as the result of self-examination, but when it is pointed out unexpectedly, and perhaps not too gently, by somebody else. These principles that govern personal moral conduct, that make harmony possible in small social units like the family, also apply in the wider areas of the state and in the whole community of nations. It is however quite absurd, in our present situation or in any other, to expect these principles to be universally accepted as the result of moral exhortations. There is very little hope that the world will be run according to them all of a sudden, as a result of some hypothetical change of heart on the part of politicians. It is useless and even laughable to base political thought on the faint hope of a purely contingent and subjective moral illumination in the hearts of the world’s leaders. But outside of political thought and action, in the religious sphere, it is not only permissible to hope for such a mysterious consummation, but it is necessary to pray for it. We can and must believe not so much that the mysterious light of God can “convert” the ones who are mostly responsible for the world’s peace, but at least that they may, in spite of their obstinacy and their prejudices, be guarded against fatal error. … For only love -- which means humility -- can exorcise the fear that is at the root of all war… If men really wanted peace they would sincerely ask God for it and He would give it to them. But why should He give the world a peace it does not really desire? The peace the world pretends to desire is really no peace at all. To some men peace merely means the liberty to exploit other people without fear of retaliation or interference. To others peace means the freedom to rob brothers without interruption. To still others it means the leisure to devour the goods of the earth without being compelled to interrupt their pleasures to feed those whom their greed is starving. And to practically everybody, peace simply means the absence of any physical violence that might cast a shadow over lives devoted to the satisfaction of their animal appetites for comfort and pleasure. Many men like these have asked God for what they thought was “peace” and wondered why their prayer was not answered. They could not understand that it actually was answered. God left them with what they desired, for their idea of peace was only another form of war. … So instead of loving what you think is peace, love other men and love God above all. And instead of hating the people you think are warmongers, hate the appetites and the disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed -- but hate these things in yourself not in another.
Meowgi -- the last sentence of that article....of course we are to hate injustice and greed that lives in our own hearts...but we are to hate it everywhere. Christ talked about "hating the World"...not the literal world, but the "system." Man's solutions... when i see injustice elsewhere, i hate it. the great example, once again, is the Holocaust. it's not enough for me to sit back and say, "i hate my own injustice...but i can't hate theirs." it's not enough. because while i say that, innocents die. they're tortured and an entire nation is fractionalized. In Isaiah we see God saying over and over again to fight injustice in the world...to take care of other people. Of course our own struggles with these "sins" is internal....but the world is cursed with more than my own greed and injustice.
Well I think that is what he meant. He does too or he wouldn't of written the article. When he says not in another, I think he means more the other, like the first sentence of the paragraph. Actually that last line or entire paragraph might of been written by Gandhi. He also said: “Violence is the only basis of all State government. The only way is to remove ourselves from all solidarity with the State itself. Wow. Still, in this era of patriotic furor, you don't hear many Christians calling for the total abolition of war. It's no wonder non-christains have these types of questions.
do you realize how many mainline protestant denominations denounced the war? presbyterians...lutherans....methodist...and the Pope spoke out against it as well.
Those aren't facts, that's conjecture and hypotheses - and furthermore, it's not something that anybody ever argued against Do you honestly think that anybody is arguing against the idea that a friendly Athenian democracy in Baghdad would be a good thing? The argument is whether or not it is an attainable goal, and especially with the means by which (Rummy, Wolfowitz & co.) have used to attain that goal, which have in fact had the opposite effect and made it less likely than ever (Abu Ghraib, etc) We had different perceptions because it has been proven, according to any reasonable definition, that the Administration was striving to create one perception over another by ignoring certain pieces of evidence while touting others (see, e.g., the aluminum tubes debacle) despite having knowledge of its dubious nature. The problem isn't so much that they were wrong, they were wrong for precisely the reasons that their critics enumerated, and made the exact miscalculations that people said that they were making. I (and tons of others with more expertise than me and in more prominent platforms than the Clutch BBS D&D section) said it was going to be an expensive bloody mess to rebuild Iraq and might be impossible, making my own judgment based on a variety of criteria, as did a number of internal dod projections and studies; the people in power said otherwise, ( under oath in the case of Wolfowitz). You could argue that this makes them ethically, morally, and or legally culpable as well though I don't care to. But anyway, this is getting far afield. You can say it's arrogant to point out that others are wrong in a factual sense. I guess it is. But I'd rather be arrogant and right rather than humble and wrong if we're trying to solve a problem.
You're right, and yet "God Bless" Bush was still reelected by this religious (christian) nation. People might find that contradictory and confusing.
Because he bluntly said that evangelical Christians were interested in "killing Iraqis." That phrase has no context and is a gross overstatement. How would you like it if I said that pro-choicers were interested in "killing children." Would you consider that to be a fair and accurate portrayal?
