Naturally, no thread yet on Romney's speech Thursday

Why do you look toward politicians to deal with your religious beliefs? You're going to be one bitter little man. If you're not already.

Politics is usually about compromise, and finding the middle ground to appeal to the most people. Those are ideas that would be pretty upsetting to someone who believes in religious absolutes.

 

Your view of politics is warped. The reality of both parties is to grab power, not compromise.

If religious absolutes of love of neighbor, addressing the needs of the poor and to protect our children as valued as they are in the eyes of Christ are threatening to you, so be it. That too illustrates a problem.

 

One thing that's sad here is that, sandwiched between a young man crapping in his hand and then drawing stick figures on the walls, there have been some real informative posts on this thread. I even managed to learn some things, which (unfortunately) I don't regularly expect when clicking on a lot of threads.

But I guess every grownup dinner party has to be interrupted by the diaper-clad toddler with applesauce in his hair and chocolate smeared about his face banging pots and pans together.

Say...I thought this board had rules about people who post simply to calls folks names and trigger dust-ups.

 

Jesus himself wouldn't poll above 12% in Iowa. Too soft on crime.

 

Another evidence that some people are selective readers. I wouldn't trust you as a journalist if you were my neighbor. I bet you really make a habit of picking and choosing what facts you share with your readers.

 

Another evidence!

Love thy neighbor!

Unless he's a journalist!

Then distrust and contend with him!

 

Because the journalist tells others that they are 1) childish; 2) hateful 3) bigoted because others do not agree with them!

 

Jesus says "Love thy neighbor."

Not "Love thy neighbor - except in the case of accompanying numbered qualifiers."

Joking aside, this one line in the Bible is the entirety of Christ's message. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Five words. The one instruction that might save us all from ourselves, and nearly impossible for the human heart to master.

 

No, Yawn, you extrapolate imprecisely.

People call you childish, hateful and bigoted.

Mostly, I think, because you are childish, hateful and bigoted.

The fact that you might disagree with them politically is ancillary at best, since you disagree politically with most of the known world and at least seven of the voices in your own head. This argument is buttressed by the fact that people from all across the political spectrum find you childish, hateful and bigoted.

But thanks for playing.

 

Very well done, Zeke.

 

Anybody think every presidential candidate should make a speech defending their faith, and how well they adhere to it, whether it's its Christianity, Mormon, Muslim etc?
Hell Nixon was a Quaker and it didn't make this kind of stir.

 

I'm a Christian. I'm a liberal. I'm also young, so maybe I'll grow out of one or both. Either way, I want to let it be known that yawn's beliefs appear to be far from accurate representations of the central tenets of Christianity. Hell, he's not even an accurate representation of the religious right. Some are ignorant, some are lemmings, and some are even hateful, but very few encapsulate all three the way yawn seems to.

Also...

I hope that by "unenlightened, uneducated ilk" you are referring only to those religious people who think exactly like yawn. But given some of your other posts, I suspect that you're not. And the notion that all Christians are uneducated is downright yawn-like in its bigotry.

I come from a deeply religious family. It is also a more well-educated family than at least 99.5 percent of those in this country. On my father's side, two uncles have doctorates from Harvard, as does my grandfather. Another has a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins. All three of my mom's brothers are medical doctors, as is her father.

As for my parents, my dad is a biologist and a drug developer. My mom is a religious studies professor and a biblical scholar. Both have Ph.Ds from Yale. If being raised by a biologist and a biblical scholar has taught me anything, it's that it is completely impossible to espouse fundamentalist religious beliefs and remain intellectually honest, particularly when you work in fields that dismantle both the creation myth and the notion that the Bible is -- inerrantly and completely -- the "word of God."

But I've also learned that a Christian faith -- when composed of spiritual and intellectual humility, deep consideration for personal experience, and a continual process of questioning and growth -- can be an uncommonly compassionate, intellectually honest, and damn effective way to live this life.