In the post linked above, Alternet blogger Joshua Holland debates the comments of a self-professed "Christian fundamentalist" in a discussion that echoes conversations from Reformed Leftist:
I contend that hypocrisy is the cornerstone of Western conservative ideology whether the discussion is economics, foreign policy, race or religion.The commenter wants us to judge other fundamentalist ideologies according to their violent minorities but not his or her own. Our guest isn't violent, but the KKK, Eric Rudolph (who bombed abortion clinics, gay bars and the Atlanta Olympics), the Lambs of God (violent abortion opponents who have shot doctors), Timothy McVeigh and a host of other groups -- terrorists -- are inspired by Christian beliefs. According to this commenter, they don't count (or they don't exist). Same with the flip-side: hundreds of millions of Muslims -- millions of whom would qualify as "fundamentalists" -- are peaceful, but they don't count either; Islamic fundies are terrorists -- whether peaceful or not -- and Christian fundies are simply following the word of God.
Is it any wonder things are so screwed up?
"Our side is in the right no matter how many civilians are killed, and no matter how many people are impoverished. The other side is not only wrong because they disagree with us, but are damned for all of eternity if they don't adhere to our principles."
18 comments:
Nadir: I agree with you that christianity is a fairy tale and that its assertion about all non-believers going to hell is abhorant, ignorant, and illogical. However, in practice, today the kooky muslims are certainly acting much worse than are the kooky christians.
The muslims are acting as murderously and as tyranically as they did during the Muslim-Christian Crusades, whereas the christians have greatly advanced since then.
I enjoyed the reference to Russia, having just last night watched a documentary about the founding of Russia. Did you know that it was once a violently conquered colony of Mongol? Gangis Kahn did some stuff to the Russians that constitutes massive genocide, as well as "raping" the land of its natural resources.
I suppose that provides Russians an eternal excuse to misbehave.
The notion of "accept christianity or go to hell" only makes sense to me in the following way: You will turn your life into a hell if you choose not to follow the example and suggestions of Jesus.
Six: Notice how far to the fringes that the leftists have to go in order to support (vainly) their assertion that freedom lovers around the face as much of a threat from christians as they do muslims.
Tim McVeigh? He was trying to enforce 6th century christian superstitions on people?
How many abortion clinic employees gete killed in the US every year, by the way? Sounds like it's thousands of times safer to work at a US abortion clinic than it is to publish a cartoon of Mohammad. Have thousands of christians rioted on behalf of executing abortion clinic employees? More of such rioters have died during their riots than have US abortion clinic employees been killed by Christian looneys. Speaking of which, do any prominant US christian preachers call for killing abortionists?
I don't even know how to argue against these pathetic examples, as anybody who would accept them as effectivly counter-balancing Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaida, the Taliban, the governments of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, Nigeria, Syria, and Samalia is impervious to weight of facts or the appeal of reason.
Six: Here's how pathetic this example of the "KKK" is in 2006: Nadir claims he lives in the Michigan headquarters of the KKK. Yet no other residents are aware of this based on their daily experiances, and the number of black and "mixed-race" couples moving here and patronizing all businesses without fear increases noticably year after year.
The KKK? In 2006? Even in their "Michigan Headquarters" they are no match for the Taliban; one effectively doesn't exist, and the other holds an entire nation hostage, with daily killings and sabataging. The Taliban of 2006 is like the KKK of 1880 or 1920.
A "host of other groups -- terrorists" in the US, indeed!
What a sad case to make! How can anybody believe this? And yet, leftist thought is rampant, Six. Many Americans really do believe this.
And then the old reliable straw man: asserting that we anti-terrorists believe that "Islamic fundies are terrorists -- whether peaceful or not". What? Who believes such a thing? Not me, and not anybody else I've ever read or heard who opposes retardation believes this. Do we believe that muslim men who wear hiddeous beards and dress in black gowns are "terrorists" neccessarily? Of course not; only if they want to kill those who do not adopt this retarded lifestyle do we consider them to be terrorists.
No wonder we're only the 150th happiest nation on earth: all these liberals and leftists in the US sulking around believing such things!
I know a way to calculate the difference amoung "fundimentalists" of Christianity and Islam. Get those gay Jews who cancelled their parade in Jerusalem, the central religious city of the nation devoted to Judaism, who cancelled it due to the war with the Hezbanazis. Then send them to parade in any three US cities where people like Nadir, Tom, and other lefties claim that christian kooks have the most power. I have no idea what cities they will cite, because I cannot imagine any US city where christian freaks would pose any tangible danger to gays. Perhaps the last three cities where any abortion clinic employees have been killed.
Then we'll send the gay paraders (aren't all paraders gay?) to impliment their parade in the following cities:
1. Mecca, Saudi Arabia
2. Kubal, Afgahnistan
3. Tehran, Iran
4. Mogodishu, Samalia
Then we'll repeat the experiment with parades of Jews, Hindus, Athiests, Muslims, and Christians.
Finally, we'll have parades of people carrying signs blaspheming the main religios icons of these crazy religions. Six and I will carry the Jesus gay porn signs through downton Birmingham, Al and any other cities that they specify. Then we will send Nadir and Tom to carry signs depicting Mohammad french-kissing his 12-year-old bride in a parade through those muslim cities. Six and I will also carry signs of Moses french-kissing a Montana sheep-herder through the streets of Jerusulum.
Another parade experiment: Six and me parading through US cities expressing admonition for the KKK and any of the "various other christian terrist groups" that Nadir thinks thrive in the US vs. Nadir and Tom parading through muslim cities expressing admonition for groups such as Hezbollah, the Taiban, and Hamas.
The results of these parades will surely demonstrate the remarkable differences between Muslim and Christian fundimentalists.
I think the most abhorrent extremists in the world are the ones in the US government and their right-wingnut supporters who are so self-righteous that they believe killing innocent civilians is their right.
Very effective response, Nadir. The logic and facts overwhelmed my various points. Indeed you are correct: the christian extremists in the US are no tamer than are the islamic extremists in the rest of the world. I have as much to fear wearing a "Jesus is a fag" t-shirt around Jerry Falwell's university as I would "Mohammad is a fag" t-shirt in Mecca. Thanks for exposing my misunderstanding, or, in the parlance of leftism, "educating me".
Josh: The Christian nuts in the US do not want to force other people to adhere to their rules for living. Local police forces are not the only thing standing between them and those of us who live by other rules. Furthermore, these US Chirstian nuts not only respect the life choices of other people operating counter to their own rules, their own rules are very much advanced past those promulgated hundreds of years ago. In terms of living according to ancient mundane customs, you can make a case against certain rediculous Jewish sects and the Amish. But even those people aren't trying to force those around them to conform to their backwards customs.
Lovers of freedom, even athiests, have only minor fears from the Christian nuts, but enormous and pending fears from the the Muslim nuts.
Theo Van Gogh got assassinated in a free nation with a strong rule of law, by Muslim nuts. When was the last time that Jesus nuts behaved that way in any free country? How long has it been since an abortion clinic employee got killed?
Paul said: "How long has it been since an abortion clinic employee got killed?"
That's it in a nutshell Paul. Leftists/anti-Americans/anti-Zionists/Islamist-apologists always trot out the same handful of Christian-Right "terror" attacks:
OK City, a few abortion clinic shootings/bombings, the Atlanta Olympic bomber, etc.
They think this short list of contemporary Christian terrorists and terror attacks are on equal footing with the never ending and ever growing list of Islamo-facist terror attacks that occur worldwide on a daily basis.
As much as they like to draw a moral equivalence between the two, there is none, if for no other reason than for the simple fact that the West condemns and prosecutes its "terrorists", whereas the Islamic world - or at the very least far too much of it - holds theirs up as heroes and martyrs.
Think I'm wrong to point out the absurdity of comparing a handful of Christian terror attacks to Islamist terror? Then I suggest you check out this website:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
Scroll down a bit and check out how many incidences of Islamic terror have occured over just the last 5 months. Then get back to me and tell me about moral equivalence.
Oh, but I'm just a hate-mongerer, right? Whatever.
You're making our point for us, Joshua.
Yes, there are terror attacks against abortion clinics in the US, but the perpetrators of these acts are ostricized by mainstream society, are hunted down, prosecuted and locked away for safe keeping after being caught and tried in a court of law. They aren't held up as heroes by mainstream American society as unfortunately far too many Islamist terrorists are.
Get real.
And no, it's not a "War on Terror". That term should be put out to pasture. The accurate term would be "War On Islamo-facist Terror". But of course, that term doesn't fly too well in this pathetically PC world in which we live.
Who's denying we're at war? Not me. If anyone's been guilty of pretending we're not at war it's been Leftists such as yourself.
It may be an asymetrical war, but it's a war just the same.
And I love this passage from your article:
"That's because the fuse that set off 9/11 was laid out decades ago in the Reagan era. His administration joined the Saudi regime (and Pakistani intelligence) in promoting an extremist form of Islamic fundamentalism to counter the Soviets in Afghanistan and the Pan-Arabists in the Gulf -- and it was lit by Clinton's fireworks display."
I guess it was President Reagan's fault that Iran held all those Americans hostage for most of a year while Jimmy carter was still President. Please.
Okay, so you're "Joshua Holland, frequent contributor to the Leftist website Alternet who is un-PC for believing we're not at war". Better? My apologies.
I know all about the theory at that at the time fundamentalist Islamic groups we're thought to be a workable deterrent to the Soviets. Just another twist on the old "the enemy of my enemy" theory.
And just to be fair, there are certainly a fair number of far-right-wing nutjobs who don't think we're at war either.
How come I can never get the damn HTML tags to work on this blog? How are you getting the italics to work?
Josh: I assume that you support concepts like free speach, religious freedom, participatory government, concent of the governed, etc. It troubles me that so many Americans like you (I used to be one of you guys!) hold these views:
- A smattering of occassional, marginalized Americans commit usually isolated and small christian-based terror attacks, get nailed by the US law enforcement and the entire press, and you equate this with the enormous world-wide movement of islamic-based terror which already controls several governments, and holds several governments in check. Even finding one US preacher who wants to attack Iran is pretty pathetic; although he cites this as a bibical edict, he only advocates it because of the conduct of its government. If Iran's govt did not impose Islam on its people, and did not fund terror against Isreal, this one preacher would not advocate invading Iran.
- You hold only the US responsible for its actions, but whenever anybody else does something that you don't like, you find a way to ultimately trace its source to the US government.
If your view carries out, and the Islamic Crusaders win, you will be begging for the days of Jerry Falwell.
I heartily agree with Six that the accurate term to describe Bush's war is "War against the Islamic Crusade". OK, I modified the term somewhat. But any term including "Islam" would get the PC crowd riled up, so they stuck with "War on Terror," which is a dumb and ineffectual term.
Interesting to see what happens when I boycott the site for a few days...
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