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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: loco on October 08, 2014, 11:42:20 AM
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By Damon Linker
Liberalism seems to have an irrational animus against Christianity. Consider these two stories highlighted in the last week by conservative Christian blogger Rod Dreher.
Item 1: In a widely discussed essay in Slate, author Brian Palmer writes about the prevalence of missionary doctors and nurses in Africa and their crucial role in treating those suffering from Ebola. Palmer tries to be fair-minded, but he nonetheless expresses "ambivalence," "suspicion," and "visceral discomfort" about the fact that these men and women are motivated to make "long-term commitments to address the health problems of poor Africans," to "risk their lives," and to accept poor compensation (and sometimes none at all) because of their Christian faith.
The question is why he considers this a problem.
Palmer mentions a lack of data and an absence of regulatory oversight. But he's honest enough to admit that these aren't the real reasons for his concern. The real reason is that he doesn't believe that missionaries are capable "of separating their religious work from their medical work," even when they vow not to proselytize their patients. And that, in his view, is unacceptable apparently because he's an atheist and religion creeps him out. As he puts it, rather wanly, "It's great that these people are doing God's work, but do they have to talk about Him so much?"
That overriding distaste for religion leads Palmer to propose a radical corollary to the classical liberal ideal of a separation between church and state one that goes far beyond politics, narrowly construed. Palmer thinks it's necessary to uphold a separation of "religion and health care."
Item 2: Gordon College, a small Christian school north of Boston, is facing the possibility of having its accreditation revoked by the higher education commission of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, according to an article in the Boston Business Journal. Since accreditation determines a school's eligibility to participate in federal and state financial aid programs, and the eligibility of its students to be accepted into graduate programs and to meet requirements for professional licensure, revoking a school's accreditation is a big deal and can even be a death sentence.
What has Gordon College done to jeopardize its accreditation? It has chosen to enforce a "life and conduct statement" that forbids "homosexual practice" on campus.
Now, one could imagine a situation in which such a statement might legitimately run afoul of an accreditation board or even anti-discrimination statutes and regulations if, for example, it stated that being gay is a sign of innate depravity and that students who feel same-sex attraction should be subject to punishment for having such desires.
But that isn't the case here. At all. In accordance with traditional Christian teaching, Gordon College bans all sexual relationships outside of marriage, gay or straight, and it goes out of its way to say that its structures against homosexual acts apply only to behavior and not to same-sex desires or orientation.
The accreditation board is not so much objecting to the college's treatment of gays as it is rejecting the legitimacy of its devoutly Christian sexual beliefs.
The anti-missionary article and the story of Gordon College's troubles are both examples (among many others) of contemporary liberalism's irrational animus against religion in general and traditional forms of Christianity in particular.
My use of the term "irrational animus" isn't arbitrary. The Supreme Court has made "irrational animus" a cornerstone of its jurisprudence on gay rights. A law cannot stand if it can be shown to be motivated by rationally unjustifiable hostility to homosexuals, and on several occasions the court has declared that traditional religious objections to homosexuality are reducible to just such a motive.
But the urge to eliminate Christianity's influence on and legacy within our world can be its own form of irrational animus. The problem is not just the cavalier dismissal of people's long-established beliefs and the ways of life and traditions based on them. The problem is also the dogmatic denial of the beauty and wisdom contained within those beliefs, ways of life, and traditions. (You know, the kind of thing that leads a doctor to risk his life and forego a comfortable stateside livelihood in favor of treating deadly illness in dangerous, impoverished African cities and villages, all out of a love for Jesus Christ.)
Contemporary liberals increasingly think and talk like a class of self-satisfied commissars enforcing a comprehensive, uniformly secular vision of the human good. The idea that someone, somewhere might devote her life to an alternative vision of the good one that clashes in some respects with liberalism's moral creed is increasingly intolerable.
That is a betrayal of what's best in the liberal tradition.
Liberals should be pleased and express gratitude when people do good deeds, whether or not those deeds are motivated by faith. They should also be content to give voluntary associations (like religious colleges) wide latitude to orient themselves to visions of the human good rooted in traditions and experiences that transcend liberal modernity provided they don't clash in a fundamental way with liberal ideals and institutions.
In the end, what we're seeing is an effort to greatly expand the list of beliefs, traditions, and ways of life that fundamentally clash with liberalism. That is an effort that no genuine liberal should want to succeed.
What happened to a liberalism of skepticism, modesty, humility, and openness to conflicting notions of the highest good? What happened to a liberalism of pluralism that recognizes that when people are allowed to search for truth in freedom, they are liable to seek and find it in a multitude of values, beliefs, and traditions? What happened to a liberalism that sees this diversity as one of the finest flowers of a free society rather than a threat to the liberal democratic order?
I don't have answers to these questions and frankly, not a lot hinges on figuring out how we got here. What matters is that we acknowledge that something in the liberal mind has changed, and that we act to recover what has been lost.
http://theweek.com/article/index/269462/why-do-so-many-liberals-despise-christianity
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Easy - for liberals - their God is the Govt. Its sort of a competition thing for them.
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Not christianity but certain christians like Beach Bum.
They call themselves christians but act/behaves nothing like it.
Its being a hyp and a fake that is hated upon not the religion itself.
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Good question. It's actually funny how many of them are antiChristian, but trip over themselves to support Islam. I have seen it firsthand numerous times.
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It isn't Christianity itself. It's just the overtly religious ones. That expect their beliefs and narrow minded thinking to be in control of your life based upon how they think you should live it.
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Good question. It's actually funny how many of them are antiChristian, but trip over themselves to support Islam. I have seen it firsthand numerous times.
Its because they fee christianity as oppressors and islam as the oppressed.
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Good question. It's actually funny how many of them are antiChristian, but trip over themselves to support Islam. I have seen it firsthand numerous times.
We will be seeing a ton of liberal infighting in the coming years.
Case in point the Bill Maher/Ben Affleck argument and the mental gymnastics Affleck was using while be faced with the cold facts laid out by Maher and Harris.
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Its because they fee christianity as oppressors and islam as the oppressed.
Which is retarded when you look at the modern day versions of each. I posted this before, but one liberal told me that the Family Research Council was "virulently" antigay for supporting traditional marriage, while (in the same conversation) giving broad based support for Muslims. I told her you cannot get more antigay than killing people because of their sexual preference, which is what today's Islam teaches.
Just talked to a guy who teaches Sharia law about this over the weekend. They still advocate stoning women who commit adultery.
And women who claim adultery must have three eyewitness. Talk about a war on women . . . .
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We will be seeing a ton of liberal infighting in the coming years.
Case in point the Bill Maher/Ben Affleck argument and the mental gymnastics Affleck was using while be faced with the cold facts laid out by Maher and Harris.
Agree. I watched a part of their exchange. Those Hollywood types need to stick to memorizing movie scripts.
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Competition with their own brand of religion.
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We will be seeing a ton of liberal infighting in the coming years.
Case in point the Bill Maher/Ben Affleck argument and the mental gymnastics Affleck was using while be faced with the cold facts laid out by Maher and Harris.
Affat was prattling off the standard left wing talking points. The fact that he accused them of racism is testament to the fact hes an idiot. As we all know Islam is a religion not a race. What is also funny is that Maher had just stated previously that anytime someone criticizes Islam they are immediately accused of racism and then moments later Affat does it. Talk about a total lack of awareness.
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We will be seeing a ton of liberal infighting in the coming years.
Case in point the Bill Maher/Ben Affleck argument and the mental gymnastics Affleck was using while be faced with the cold facts laid out by Maher and Harris.
I could take Ben Affleck seriously if he showed as much vitriol in his rant against Bill Maher every time he said horrible things about Catholicism.
Where was Ben when Dan Savage talked about "baby fucking Catholic priests"? probably at home laughing his ass off.
the fact is he doesn't care when people make bigoted remarks. he only cares when they make bigoted remarks about the groups that are a "protected group" of liberal America.
if you hate religion. fine. but people like Ban Affleck want to pick and choose the groups they want to insult and condemn. which is why you will never see an anti gay rally outside of a Baptist church on the Westside of Chicago.
nor did you ever see anyone say shit every time Ray Lewis spoke about Jesus Christ. which was every single pre and post game interview the man ever had. but Tim Tebow? yeah he made their list immediately. why? you tell me.
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I could take Ben Affleck seriously if he showed as much vitriol in his rant against Bill Maher every time he said horrible things about Catholicism.
Where was Ben when Dan Savage talked about "baby fucking Catholic priests"? probably at home laughing his ass off.
the fact is he doesn't care when people make bigoted remarks. he only cares when they make bigoted remarks about the groups that are a "protected group" of liberal America.
if you hate religion. fine. but people like Ban Affleck want to pick and choose the groups they want to insult and condemn. which is why you will never see an anti gay rally outside of a Baptist church on the Westside of Chicago.
nor did you ever see anyone say shit every time Ray Lewis spoke about Jesus Christ. which was every single pre and post game interview the man ever had. but Tim Tebow? yeah he made their list immediately. why? you tell me.
One of the ten commandments of Liberalism is that a victim can never victimize. If a perpetual victim does commit a crime every effort will be made to explain the reason for the crime as something external like racism and poverty. Christianity is not a protected victim class.
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Good post and thread. I'm as secular as they come but raised catholic..12 year stretch in catholic school etc. Unless your a fucking retarded penguin...questioning missionary work in backassward Africa...where these people have nothing and there aren't enough doc's to go around is ridiculous. The church did it self no favors by not hammering the priests involved in its various scandals but as with anything politics plays a part. The closeted gay mafia within some seminaries was powerful and there was a reluctance to go after them by Rome. I was in Mass when this shit exploded...with cardinal law. He took his orders from Rome and was rewarded after all this shit came out. Rome has a huge recruitment problem...whether its priests or nuns...especially in the US. Hence their reluctance to go after pedophiles....not even a remote excuse but its part of the issue. I have seen exactly ZERO catholic priests in my time in the Army. We had one in Iraq...never met him. I knew one while I was a Marine...actually set eyes on him.
Back to the original point...go after Islam and all their shit before even remotely turning an eye to Mormon/Christian/catholic missionaries desperately trying to save lives with hardly any supplies. Fucking Libs.....
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Affat was prattling off the standard left wing talking points. The fact that he accused them of racism is testament to the fact hes an idiot. As we all know Islam is a religion not a race. What is also funny is that Maher had just stated previously that anytime someone criticizes Islam they are immediately accused of racism and then moments later Affat does it. Talk about a total lack of awareness.
When Harris came out with the cold hard data which he is well versed in, Affleck really had no other comeback rather than sit there and shake his head then return with the "racism" charge. Basically the tell-tale sign that you have won an argument with a liberal.
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When Harris came out with the cold hard data which he is well versed in, Affleck really had no other comeback rather than sit there and shake his head then return with the "racism" charge. Basically the tell-tale sign that you have won an argument with a liberal.
Saul Alinky's rules for radicals. It's a common strategy.
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Islam is self oppressed. How else could you justify living in the Stone Age and expecting the evolving world around you to do to the same?
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Saul Alinky's rules for radicals. It's a common strategy.
Yep.
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By Damon Linker
Liberalism seems to have an irrational animus against Christianity. Consider these two stories highlighted in the last week by conservative Christian blogger Rod Dreher.
Item 1: In a widely discussed essay in Slate, author Brian Palmer writes about the prevalence of missionary doctors and nurses in Africa and their crucial role in treating those suffering from Ebola. Palmer tries to be fair-minded, but he nonetheless expresses "ambivalence," "suspicion," and "visceral discomfort" about the fact that these men and women are motivated to make "long-term commitments to address the health problems of poor Africans," to "risk their lives," and to accept poor compensation (and sometimes none at all) because of their Christian faith.
The question is why he considers this a problem.
Palmer mentions a lack of data and an absence of regulatory oversight. But he's honest enough to admit that these aren't the real reasons for his concern. The real reason is that he doesn't believe that missionaries are capable "of separating their religious work from their medical work," even when they vow not to proselytize their patients. And that, in his view, is unacceptable apparently because he's an atheist and religion creeps him out. As he puts it, rather wanly, "It's great that these people are doing God's work, but do they have to talk about Him so much?"
That overriding distaste for religion leads Palmer to propose a radical corollary to the classical liberal ideal of a separation between church and state one that goes far beyond politics, narrowly construed. Palmer thinks it's necessary to uphold a separation of "religion and health care."
Item 2: Gordon College, a small Christian school north of Boston, is facing the possibility of having its accreditation revoked by the higher education commission of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, according to an article in the Boston Business Journal. Since accreditation determines a school's eligibility to participate in federal and state financial aid programs, and the eligibility of its students to be accepted into graduate programs and to meet requirements for professional licensure, revoking a school's accreditation is a big deal and can even be a death sentence.
What has Gordon College done to jeopardize its accreditation? It has chosen to enforce a "life and conduct statement" that forbids "homosexual practice" on campus.
Now, one could imagine a situation in which such a statement might legitimately run afoul of an accreditation board or even anti-discrimination statutes and regulations if, for example, it stated that being gay is a sign of innate depravity and that students who feel same-sex attraction should be subject to punishment for having such desires.
But that isn't the case here. At all. In accordance with traditional Christian teaching, Gordon College bans all sexual relationships outside of marriage, gay or straight, and it goes out of its way to say that its structures against homosexual acts apply only to behavior and not to same-sex desires or orientation.
The accreditation board is not so much objecting to the college's treatment of gays as it is rejecting the legitimacy of its devoutly Christian sexual beliefs.
The anti-missionary article and the story of Gordon College's troubles are both examples (among many others) of contemporary liberalism's irrational animus against religion in general and traditional forms of Christianity in particular.
My use of the term "irrational animus" isn't arbitrary. The Supreme Court has made "irrational animus" a cornerstone of its jurisprudence on gay rights. A law cannot stand if it can be shown to be motivated by rationally unjustifiable hostility to homosexuals, and on several occasions the court has declared that traditional religious objections to homosexuality are reducible to just such a motive.
But the urge to eliminate Christianity's influence on and legacy within our world can be its own form of irrational animus. The problem is not just the cavalier dismissal of people's long-established beliefs and the ways of life and traditions based on them. The problem is also the dogmatic denial of the beauty and wisdom contained within those beliefs, ways of life, and traditions. (You know, the kind of thing that leads a doctor to risk his life and forego a comfortable stateside livelihood in favor of treating deadly illness in dangerous, impoverished African cities and villages, all out of a love for Jesus Christ.)
Contemporary liberals increasingly think and talk like a class of self-satisfied commissars enforcing a comprehensive, uniformly secular vision of the human good. The idea that someone, somewhere might devote her life to an alternative vision of the good one that clashes in some respects with liberalism's moral creed is increasingly intolerable.
That is a betrayal of what's best in the liberal tradition.
Liberals should be pleased and express gratitude when people do good deeds, whether or not those deeds are motivated by faith. They should also be content to give voluntary associations (like religious colleges) wide latitude to orient themselves to visions of the human good rooted in traditions and experiences that transcend liberal modernity provided they don't clash in a fundamental way with liberal ideals and institutions.
In the end, what we're seeing is an effort to greatly expand the list of beliefs, traditions, and ways of life that fundamentally clash with liberalism. That is an effort that no genuine liberal should want to succeed.
What happened to a liberalism of skepticism, modesty, humility, and openness to conflicting notions of the highest good? What happened to a liberalism of pluralism that recognizes that when people are allowed to search for truth in freedom, they are liable to seek and find it in a multitude of values, beliefs, and traditions? What happened to a liberalism that sees this diversity as one of the finest flowers of a free society rather than a threat to the liberal democratic order?
I don't have answers to these questions and frankly, not a lot hinges on figuring out how we got here. What matters is that we acknowledge that something in the liberal mind has changed, and that we act to recover what has been lost.
http://theweek.com/article/index/269462/why-do-so-many-liberals-despise-christianity
neither of these incidents is proof that "so many" of anyone "despises" anything
Did you even read the article that was item #1 in this story that you posted?
(Here is a link so you can check it out:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2014/10/missionary_doctors_treating_ebola_in_africa_why_people_are_suspicious_of.html
If you did you notice that by far the most despicable statements about these doctors were from two well know far right lunatics
When an infected American missionary was flown back to the United States for treatment, Donald Trump griped that do-gooders trying to save Africa should be prepared to suffer the consequences. Ann Coulter called the doctor idiotic, and asked of his mission to Africa, What was the point?
When you read further the author talks first about the lack of data on how effective the work of these missionary doctors are, the lack of oversight, the lack of medical malpractice laws, etc.. and only then does he get to his concern (a bias to which he admits he is not proud of) that these doctors might be proselytizing and says "Whether implicitly or explicitly, some missionaries pressure their patients, at moments of maximum vulnerability and desperation, to convert. That troubles me. I suspect that many others have the same visceral discomfort with the mingling of religion and health care."
This is hardly rising the the level of "despise" that you see in the quotes by Coulter and Trump (two NON-LIBERALS)
Here is how the author ends this "diatribe of despise" against christians
As an atheist, I try to make choices based on evidence and reason. So until were finally ready to invest heavily in secular medicine for Africa, I suggest we stand aside and let God do His work.
So item # 1 is total bullshit
Do you really need to have someone explain the problems in item #2?
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Probably wouldn't end the liberal hate, but you religious types don't help matters as you can't seem to leave others the fuck alone.
Don't drop pamphlets on people's desk.
Don't try to pass Blue Laws cause you don't like people doing shit on Sundays.
Stop messing with people who want to have an abortion.
And on, and on
Leave others alone. Would probably go a long, long way.
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Probably wouldn't end the liberal hate, but you religious types don't help matters as you can't seem to leave others the fuck alone.
Don't drop pamphlets on people's desk.
Don't try to pass Blue Laws cause you don't like people doing shit on Sundays.
Stop messing with people who want to have an abortion.
And on, and on
Leave others alone. Would probably go a long, long way.
This is why I enjoy reading your posts so much.
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Probably wouldn't end the liberal hate, but you religious types don't help matters as you can't seem to leave others the fuck alone.
Don't drop pamphlets on people's desk.
Don't try to pass Blue Laws cause you don't like people doing shit on Sundays.
Stop messing with people who want to have an abortion.
And on, and on
Leave others alone. Would probably go a long, long way.
This, end of thread....
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Probably wouldn't end the liberal hate, but you religious types don't help matters as you can't seem to leave others the fuck alone.
Don't drop pamphlets on people's desk.
Don't try to pass Blue Laws cause you don't like people doing shit on Sundays.
Stop messing with people who want to have an abortion.
And on, and on
Leave others alone. Would probably go a long, long way.
I generally agree but it's not like liberals are ones to leave other people alone themselves. The reason that liberals badger Christians really has nothing to do with what Christianity stand for. If it were about objectionable religious doctrine, liberals would dish out religious criticisms equally but they don't. Islam is the most patriarchal, oppressive and misogynistic religion on the planet but liberals will ferociously defend Islam Christianity and in particularly white Christianity is a symbol to the left and must be destroyed in order to build the secular egalitarian utopia they want.
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Yup...plus they are worried about the...sorry douchbag leftists...possible physical danger angering these people would cause. You can piss off Christians all you want.
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I generally agree but it's not like liberals are ones to leave other people alone themselves. The reason that liberals badger Christians really has nothing to do with what Christianity stand for. If it were about objectionable religious doctrine, liberals would dish out religious criticisms equally but they don't. Islam is the most patriarchal, oppressive and misogynistic religion on the planet but liberals will ferociously defend Islam Christianity and in particularly white Christianity is a symbol to the left and must be destroyed in order to build the secular egalitarian utopia they want.
their logic continually folds in on itself. like when the women's rights groups were traveling to India to try and stop people from aborting baby girls because it was wreaking havoc on their populace. they were trying to place laws on who you can and cannot abort.
some of them were literally picketing in the US with signs saying, "you can't place laws on my body" and then flying on a plane to India and trying to put laws on women's bodies.
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their logic continually folds in on itself. like when the women's rights groups were traveling to India to try and stop people from aborting baby girls because it was wreaking havoc on their populace. they were trying to place laws on who you can and cannot abort.
some of them were literally picketing in the US with signs saying, "you can't place laws on my body" and then flying on a plane to India and trying to put laws on women's bodies.
since you used the word "literally" please tell us exactly who you referring to
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since you used the word "literally" please tell us exactly who you referring to
well I meant that they would stand with signs at a pro choice rally and then a month later they would be in India trying to put laws on the women's bodies there to try and stop the "gendercide", as they called it from occurring there. what did it exactly say on their sign. I don't know.
but I'm assuming that their argument here in America is that no one has the right to put laws on women's bodies.......well here in the US anyway.
maybe I used literally wrong but I bet you I didn't. guarantee one of those women has held a sign, worn a shirt, displayed a bumper sticker, that said exactly that at some point before traveling to India and attempting to place laws on those women's bodies.
and you know what I meant. now you're just being a little bitch.
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well I meant that they would stand with signs at a pro choice rally and then a month later they would be in India trying to put laws on the women's bodies there to try and stop the "gendercide", as they called it from occurring there. what did it exactly say on their sign. I don't know.
but I'm assuming that their argument here in America is that no one has the right to put laws on women's bodies.......well here in the US anyway.
maybe I used literally wrong but I bet you I didn't. guarantee one of those women has held a sign, worn a shirt, displayed a bumper sticker, that said exactly that at some point before traveling to India and attempting to place laws on those women's bodies.
and you know what I meant. now you're just being a little bitch.
I know you're probably full of shit but I'll believe you if you can provide some LITERAL examples
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Yup...plus they are worried about the...sorry douchbag leftists...possible physical danger angering these people would cause. You can piss off Christians all you want.
This is a very important point and does say a lot about the Islam.
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I know you're probably full of shit but I'll believe you if you can provide some LITERAL examples
what are you saying? that the women's groups who went to India to stop the "gendercide" were not pro choice?
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what are you saying? that the women's groups who went to India to stop the "gendercide" were not pro choice?
I'm saying you used the word literally so you should be able to provide some literal examples of exactly what you said
why is that so difficult to understand
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This is a very important point and does say a lot about the Islam.
not necessarily just Islam though. their target of choice are white Christians. Like I said before have you ever seen a pro choice group interrupt church service at a Baptist church on the West Side of Chicago? i'll bet no.
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I'm saying you used the word literally so you should be able to provide some literal examples of exactly what you said
why is that so difficult to understand
I addressed it in my last post.
maybe I used literally wrong but I bet you I didn't. guarantee one of those women has held a sign, worn a shirt, displayed a bumper sticker, that said exactly that at some point before traveling to India and attempting to place laws on those women's bodies.
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I'm saying you used the word literally so you should be able to provide some literal examples of exactly what you said
why is that so difficult to understand
let me ask you. do you think that those American women's rights groups were being hypocritical?
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I addressed it in my last post.
maybe I used literally wrong but I bet you I didn't. guarantee one of those women has held a sign, worn a shirt, displayed a bumper sticker, that said exactly that at some point before traveling to India and attempting to place laws on those women's bodies.
I'll bet you did
one way to prove it is to provide some examples or just admit you're talking out of your ass
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let me ask you. do you think that those American women's rights groups were being hypocritical?
I have no idea what you're referring to
provide me some examples and I will give you my opinion