Why did intelligent Christians vote for Bush?

Silly rabbit...don't you know conservatives luv prog?

They didn't.

(seriously. my mom actually said that. "John Kerry scares me to death" etc)

In other words, he didn't vote for Bush.

The point is an opposing side has to understand the arguments made by people like this and find their faults if they want to get any of their (what they believe to be best) agenda in motion. If not there will be a slim chance of ever getting same-sex marriage or abortion or stem cell research unless someone can discredit the bible (which is an impossible task) or trick the people on the other side or find some other real truth somewhere.

that's all you need to understand.

i'm quite sure that jon anderson wasn't too thrilled by this past election. (rick wakeman, on the other hand ...)

...published this e-mail from one who doesn't:

"Have to disagree with David Brooks and evidently you. To point out that the evangelicals voted in the same proportion for Bush as they did in 2000 gets a fact right and misses the point. What matters is that the Bush vote by these folks did not erode in the face of catastrophic management of post-invasion Iraq, prisoner atrocities, transformation of the surplus into a suffocating deficit and terrible job performance. It seems to me that their religious views trump everything. You switched your vote - why didn't they? The answer is complex, but you can bet it includes homophobia deftly catalyzed by Mr. Rove et. al."

and nairn your true colours really shine when you say shit like "unless someone can discredit the bible (which is an impossible task)"

why do you think YOUR interpretation of YOUR religion should have any bearing on the public policy of a country that guarantees religious freedom - including the belief to not believe in your interpreatation of your bible. No-one needs to discredit anything - it's not a valid argument.

what was it bush said the terrorists hated the US for again? wasn't it your freedom?

They don't think. That's the problem.

"If you want to understand why Democrats keep losing elections, just listen to some coastal and university town liberals talk about how conformist and intolerant people in Red America are. It makes you wonder: why is it that people who are completely closed-minded talk endlessly about how open-minded they are?"

It's obviously the Dude:
http://www.ars.pl/images/filmy/big_lebowski.jpg

This is the Jesus:
http://www.revisioncinema.com/ci_lebo2.jpg

we don't need to

but even if that were true it wouldn't give them any excuse to present their personal interpretations of their religious texts as irrefutable truth ("impossible to discredit")

and nairn why don't you let us know where you stand on this instead of pretending you're just passing on some insight into how "intelligent christians" think?

http://blog.badchristian.com/blogs/

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/

in fact, maybe none of them did.

http://grammarian.homelinux.net/~mpyne/weblog/personal/disappointment-2004.html

xp

why don't you condescend a little more?

but with regard to the extreme religious right - please tell me how one is one supposed to react to a group that actively promotes the idea that those who do not share its beliefs will burn in eternal hell-fire? it's a little tough to reason with that line of thinking.

somebody go find the results of those studies about the current events knowledge of folks partaking exclusively of strongly conservative media(Fox News, Rush, etc) vs those who don't("stoned slackers", et al)

It's great to learn, cuz knowledge is power!

and in any case, you then agree that he shouldn't have been president in the first place?

x post

This result had nothing to do with the merits of either candidate - there's no comparison, and even Bush's so called brilliant political skills are hugely overrated. The issue is that, over a number of decades, one side has built up such an institutional advantage that they didn't even have to run a proper candidate. Bush has hardly been touched by a dozen issues that would have killed any previous president, especially Democratic ones. Any now Christians in the heartland have voted for torture, and they won't have any realisation that they've done it.

I can't see any faults in the article itself. It makes perfectly good arguments...if you already agree that the bible should be used as a lawmaking tool. I completely disagree with a lot of its principles, however. To me it seems wrong to use the bible to influence the lives of people who may or may not care what the bible says. The article says, "We believe the ethical choice is for candidates committed to appointing judges who will follow the original intent of the Constitution." One of the original intents of the constitution is to give people the freedom to practice or not practice their own religion. I think the outlawing of practices such as gay marriage and abortion favor Christianity over other religions (which isn't freedom of religion) and obviously deprives non-Christians (and gay Christians, and Christians who value abortion rights) of rights to which they should certainly be entitled.

The article begins with a self-contradiction - they refuse to admit that the bible and the constitution are not the same thing. The constitutions should protect people from Government prohibitions on many of the things they discuss (abortion is in a difficult category here, because while I'm pro-choice, I can see why people who believe it is murder would have very strong feelings about it). But, sorry, the constitution should protect your right to porn, to be recognised as being in a relationship.

It is also perfectly fine to pray in public places, isn't it? It is just not fine for state agencies to push individuals in one direction or another on that score (someone correct me on this score if I'm wrong, but I'd say he's lying).

His argument in the third paragraph of the judiciary section is one in favour of "tyranny of the majority", which is precisely what constitutions protect against.

2.

He is misrepresenting Kerry's position here quite dishonestly.

3.

Neither Candidate said they would make abortion illegal, so he has no argument to make here.

4.

Here is a real difference, although he should recognise that Bush beat this into a constitutional issue to play him and his flock like chumps.

5.

This is a valid position, although I disagree with it strongly (and it is easily different from abortion or murder, come on.

6.

straw man.

7.

Herein his argument reaches a serious contradiction. He's arguing for a theocratic state based on the laws of nations as set out in the bible. But he makes other arguments elsewhere that rely on upholding the constitution or on majority views. If he wants to overturn the democratic values in favour of a theocratic state, he should be honest enough to argue for that.

So upon consideration, the article holds some perfectly valid viewpoints that Christains have every right to argue. But it also is dishonest and carries a dangerous agenda that he wouldn't dare push forward in polite company.

It also leaves aside a whole bunch of questions that are just as necessary for a Christial assessment of the situation: how come embryos are protected by the prohibition against murder but not Iraqi civilians? What about the need to have a leader that knows what they are doing so that harm of government is minimised and its benifits are maximised? How come Bush's untruths are not discussed? How come Bush's belief in his power to act outside laws is not discussed? What about torture, including sexual torture? What about the dismantling of constitutional rights that could as easily affect Christians as any other identifiable part of society? What about the crimes and profiteering of people Bush supports? And so on?

Even on abortion Kerry's position was something that many in the Christian community could live with in potential. And stem cells are beaten up into more of an issue than they really are.

x-post

anyway, if/when it becomes socially unacceptable to stick it to the gays it is my belief that they'll just find another group to hate.

Which is why no 'intelligent Christian' should have voted for Bush based on the reasoning in the article from this thread. If you feel you need to cite the bible to legitimize your bigotry, you're not intelligent. An intelligent Christian might have sought other reasons to agree or disagree with Bush's policies on these matters and hopefully found none.

The fact is, open-mindedness is a virtue only in tandem with decisiveness and commitment. Someone who remained endlessly open-minded and never committed to any decisions or interpretations would be gormless.

That's not called adolescent, it's called semantic!

Maybe - I know how much you love this stuff Momus. However, I think defining yourself in terms of things you are againsy rather than things you are for, railing against authority etc. are adolescent. Of course, being for something is being against something, but choosing to express it as opposition says a lot about yout personality.

I can't tell if this is more tim@kfc or Chairman Mao

My reaction, both to the election and the article, was a feeling that did something similar in return - I could not identify with them, and I felt them as a threat. Which they are, but there are better ways to deal with such situations often than to lash out, which is what my first reaction did, and what others on this thread do too.

I have hope, which is that evangelicals are being seriously misled by people such as those that signed their name to the article anairn posted. Ultimately we probably have lots more in common than not.

x-post

I studied in a Catholic school and I've read the Bible a couple of times. For all the times that I've read it, I've never come across anything that condems outright gay relationships. (well, unless the Jesuits, whom tend to be pretty liberal, skipped those parts)

Is David Brooks a college freshman?

Not when you're a homophobic murdering cunt it doesn't.

there's an expression -- "he's so open-minded, that when he goes to sleep his brains fall outta his head."

It's true that people on my side of the divide want to live in a society where women are free to choose and where gay relationships have civil equality with straight ones. And you want to live in a society where the opposite is true. These are some of those conflicting values everyone is talking about. But at least my values...don't involve any direct imposition on you. We don't want to force you to have an abortion or to marry someone of the same sex, whereas you do want to close out those possibilities for us. Which is more arrogant?

We on my side of the great divide don't, for the most part, believe that our values are direct orders from God. We don't claim that they are immutable and beyond argument. We are, if anything, crippled by reason and open-mindedness, by a desire to persuade rather than insist. Which philosophy is more elitist? Which is more contemptuous of people who disagree?

amen.

and fuck all y'all bible bangers!

Some people believe that if gay marriage is legalized their churches will be forced to marry gay people, which is an infringement on the church's and churchgoers' rights to maintain their beliefs about marriage. Many conservatives do consider the gay marriage issue imposing. (nb: I do not agree with these conservatives)

Maybe, trying to get African's behavior to be more resistant to the spreading of AIDS,
helping people who have diseases, or the metally ill or malnutritioned. what else?

What is a good example where there is direct imposition into some matter that only really effects the imposee, that maybe they wouldn't like, but in the end is good?

Overall, Bush improved on his 2000 performance, winning 51% of the popular vote, compared with 48% in 2000. However, that mainly results from the lack of a significant performance by any third-party candidate this year who took votes away from the two major parties, such as Nader did in 2000. (To put it in perspective, Kerry, who lost the popular vote this year, got the same 48% as Gore in 2000, and Gore won the popular vote.) For the most part, Bush's 2004 performances are similar to what they were in 2000, other than the slight increase from the higher major-party vote. However, his gains among conservatives (+9), urban residents (+9), and weekly churchgoers (+7) suggest a real increase in support over 2000, while his seven-point drop in support among younger voters and six-point drop among rural residents indicates a significant decrease in support compared with 2000.

(scroll down)

"But at least my values...don't involve any direct imposition on you."

I have a lot of sympathy with both these lines of argument, but here's the problem: it's easy for liberals (myself included) to point out the contradictions in the Christian Right's lopsided "culture of life", but that doesn't resolve the vulnerabilities of our own position. In other words, the same question can be directed back: "how come YOU want to protect Iraqi civilians but NOT embryos?".
"Why is that contemporary liberalism is so passionate about protecting the rights of the powerless and voiceless, but will not protect the rights of the most powerless and voiceless of all?" "Your values", this person might continue, "may not involve any direct imposition on ME, an adult, but they are an absolute imposition on the unborn fetus...no less than killing an adult human being is."

Many liberals and pro-choicers have tried to neutralize the effects of such an argument by playing with the definitional boundaries of what constitutes a "living" or a "conscious", or a "sentient" human being, and by asserting that outside that boundary (wherever it is drawn, and according to whatever characteristic), this creature is not sufficiently "alive" or "human" to have rights that should override those of its mother. This is all by way of denying that "abortion is murder". Even as one who believes abortion should be legal, I find this unconvincing and intellectually dishonest.

But "that small part" is what I've been focusing on from my first post on this issue -not because I want to prevail in an argument, but because I think that small part is significant, if not all-important. I said from my first post on this issue that I sense a lack of recognition by the pro-choice "lobby" (so to speak, bear with me) that a choice is being made between the rights of two people. I happen to agree with the way the choice ultimately gets made by those who favor abortion, but I just think we're not being fully cognizant of the fact that it IS a choice. And this can sometimes blind us to the logic of those on the other side who are NOT disingenous, who are simply making a different choice.

But I repeat myself, and obviously I'm not making much headway, so I'll leave it at that.

Isn't the Catholic position that it is *always* something more, even before fertilisation - which is why condoms are evil. Of course, this implies that menstruation is evil too.

if they want to live sad lives like that, let them. i won't stop 'em. but don't cram it down my throat, or anyone else's throat.

Actually older Catholic doctrine had it that the soul entered the child at 'quickening'. Condoms are considered 'wrong' for many reasons, most usually because of the "Go forth and multiply command".

I'm not sure how much the scientists can help us with that one.

What is quickening? The point where the foetus starts moving its limbs?

i'm sorry.

Yeah, this IS really all about wanting to control young women, those dangerous sexy beasts. Any stats on whether Christian men are more anti-abortion than Christian women? It wouldn't surprise me; there has to be some amusing pseudomath like the further you are from the terrorists, the more you worry about them. By the same token, the further you are from actually having sex which ends with a bun in your oven, the more black and white the issue may seem to you. A lot of women in their 30s today became heavily radicalised on the issue as teenagers, when the neocon pressure on it started in the mid/late '80s. Honestly, when I was 16, if we (me and my small group of mouthy punk/waver friends) didn't have the local anti-abortion zealot (male, hung around school gates leafleting) damn us to Hell at least once a week during my junior year we felt a bit let down.

We were very mean to him. I've talked about turning his Silent Scream full-colour leaflets into spitballs and firing them back at him (hooray for wide McDonald's straws). We asked him if he went to teenaged hookers in the past and was now guilty about...something. We wondered why a 50 year old man was not at work at 2.20, speculated quite rudely about his employment prospects or lack thereof and asked him if he'd ever tasted placenta. We changed the words to Papa Don't Preach to 'I'm gonna kill my baby' and sang the revised version at him.

When we were told by the Ass Principal that the man could leaflet because the sidewalk was public property, we made a circle around the leafleter, locked arms and 'walked' him down the street without touching him, all the while yelling 'FREE, getcher full-colour dead foetus pitchers RIGHTCHERE!' I told him that if he laid one finger on us it was assaulting a minor, or could be very easily construed that way by someone who spoke policeman or lawyer, which I did, and that if he came back we would walk him away just like this EVERY SINGLE TIME. And I don't doubt we would have, had he ever come back after that.

There. Psuedo-science...at work...for you.

LCE for Chief Justice (a vast improvement over Rehnquist)!

anyway, anyone here should ask the pro-lifers, "if God is pro-life, then why does He allow miscarriages (i.e., nature's abortions)"?

If it can't live on its own, it's a parasite. A pregnant woman has the right to separate a parasite from her body. If someone can think of a way to transplant a fetus and can find some takers, then we don't need to have this debate anymore.

Hi Alex ;)

Peace!

And just as a person who is brain-dead can be removed from life support, so goes the argument.

And I didn't say that anyone *should* be killed. I said that the decision rests with the woman carrying the foetus.

Peace!

I agree with those upthread who said that the "just bunch of cells" thing just won't wash with those who believe it's a life and that its sanctity should be preserved. This is a very difficult thing to get past and I can't see many people changing their minds about it, hence the reason it's such a polarised and emotive debate. I don't think either side will ever give any ground on this.

Sorry for rambling on!

"if God is pro-life, then why does He allow miscarriages (i.e., nature's abortions)"
Depends on whether the believer thinks of God as interventionist. One may as well ask why he "allows" adults to be murdered. Those who believe in an interventionist God will simply tell you it's all part of his masterplan and you have absolutely no chance of making a reasoned debate out of it with them.

When a former girlfriend miscarried, my instant reaction was "We've lost our baby" not "She's naturally aborted a bunch of flawed cells". I'm sure this was partly because I'd already adjusted myself to a future with a baby in it. One doesn't grieve for cells, and I grieved. If anyone had said "but it's not a baby" to me at the time I'd have attacked them. Emotions run high at times like these, given a bit of time I came to terms with it and given the way our relationship ended there's a case for saying we should never have been having children anyway.

It seems an unwanted feotus will always be referred to as a feotus while a wanted feotus will always be referred to as a baby, despite its parasitical status.

I'm sure I just opened a can of worms...

I didn't realize this had been discussed at much length in the "scientific community". This is the place where I really must insist on some citations to back that up. Up to now, it was purely philosophical among the ILX posters. If you're going to speak for someone outside of the community, I'd like to know who those people are. I.e. .. assure me that the "scientific community" of which you speak represents a group that we all find credible.

:^)

http://www.l4l.org/library/notparas.html

OK, forget the word "Parasite" .. I concede that it's a controvercial term ... So, we can make up a new word for the relationship between woman & foetus, but that doesn't change the argument that it's her decision whether or not she wants it inside of her.

Speaking as one currently impregnated, i find this analogy quite OTM. except that it is perhaps not extreme enough. while many hosts of parasites are able to function normally and perhaps remain ignorant of the parasites' existence, this would be almost impossible for the pregnant human. it is not just a matter of your abdomen enlarging, sadly. your entire body changes in alarming ways. luckily, nature has also provided hormonal changes in order to make these hardships seem worth it.

http://thechrisproject.com/images/map_nowvsthen.jpg

No, it isn't parallel, because it removes the disctinction in the weight we place on the rights of the mother and the unborn child, which is probably where pro-choice arguments should focus, rather than bodily autonomy. (although I do believe bodily autonomy arguments are valid, there is a limit I think. Really, probably no argument in itself is going to 'win', and an apreciation of the arguments altogether is needed - in which case I think pro-choice must win out, though 'adding arguments' is somewhat difficult to do in a rational, rather than gut, fashion.)

(sorry for being off-topic)

:-) Now see where your love of beardy blokes got you. ;-)

But the reason why it is not considered parasitic or discussed as such by doctors et al is not because it doesn't bear striking resemblance to a parasitic health issue (in fact, in purely definitional terms ignoring the idea of baby/mother, it basically fits any description of a parasitic relationship, particularly in the first trimester). It's because of the other reasons that have been cited on thread, which is that it is a potentially offensive and definitely controversial term.

I personally wouldn't use it but it is, strictly speaking, an accurate way to define what occurs in the earlier stages of pregnancy.

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/

Nov 11, 2004
More on "moral values"
Following up on this earlier post, I want to make two distinct points more clearly regarding exit polls' use of the phrase "moral values" to describe the motivation of some Bush supporters.

1. This notion of what constitutes "moral" issues is grotesquely stunted.

"Moral values" as a category cannot be segregated from things like jobs, taxes, the economy, health care, the environment, the war in Iraq, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, government secrecy, honesty, corporate corruption, educational opportunity and protection of civil rights. All of these are also moral issues.

As The Poor Man put it:

"Moral issues" means not putting people before profit, it means trying to help those less fortunate than yourself, and Dear Lord it means not lying for just one blessed moment, because these are, actually, moral issues.

To relocate all of these things outside the parameters of "moral" discussion is, in fact, immoral. To suggest that these subjects are not essential to "evangelical Christian" morality is, in fact, heretical.

So problem No. 1 is that the pollsters' version of morality is far too small. But that is not the only problem.

2. Some of these "moral" stances are, in fact, morally dubious.

Here let me quote from Matt Yglesias:

The right-wing view on gay marriage -- not the view of a small band of religious fanatics but that of a clear majority of the American people -- is immoral and wrongheaded. Every bit as immoral and wrongheaded as the old view that the stability of the family required bans on interracial marriage. And in the future, I am confident, it will be regarded as such. ...

Gay and lesbian Americans are simply trying to live their lives in peace -- with the same rights as the rest of us. That the Democrats paid a price for the very mild form of advocacy for this position is a cause for regret but not for apology.

That's exactly right. "Civil rights for me but not for thee," is not a morally defensible position. And much of the language directed against homosexuals this past year has simply been morally odious and despicable -- i.e., sinful.

Some political observers have responded to the electoral map and the exit polls by suggesting that if Democrats want to succeed in the scarlet states they will need to: A) accept the gelded notion of "morality" as a category primarily concerned with the condemnation of sexual minorities; and B) join in and embrace this impious form of piety to win more votes.

This is bad advice. It is also -- what's the word I'm looking for? -- immoral.

Posted by Fred Clark on Nov 11, 2004 at 06:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack (3)

I'd quite like a mandatory class on moral philosophy in schools (in my school in the UK, the 'higher' class in Religious Studies included very broad moral philosophy ideas. We studied abortion, and the different theological arguments about it. I contrasted religious views on suicide with my own moral views about it for my dissertation), and hopefully this will let people say what an all-pervading idea morality is, a concept that affects every level of human interaction. War is a much more serious moral problem than gay marriage, and I guess a class on political philosophy would help cement the difference between 'wrong' and 'immoral', which the right seems to forget, while giving people a grounding in the ideas that they are talking about when they argue about such things, because most of the time people are talking about concepts that are based upon thousands of years of thought that they know nothing about.

to get to the other side

What we didn't know then

i've come to the conclusion, after years of agonizing about it, that if i travelled back in time twenty years i'd just troll the shit out of my past self

"so you know khan noonien singh from the star trek episode 'space seed'?"
20 years ago me, honestly: "no"
"it turns out he's a REAL PERSON and man, things are bad, we're all having to fight khan noonien singh"
20 years ago me: "ok so why are you a girl"
"no time to explain now, look, i can only tell you this once, you only have one chance to save the future from utter devastation. you MUST ELECT JOHN KERRY PRESIDENT IN 2004."

i mean 20 years ago me doesn't deserve that shit but they didn't deserve most of the shit they went through

The real question is, would you make out with your past self?

probably not, tbh, past me was cute and sweet but had some serious problems and kind of needs to get their shit together before i'd make out with them. also past me was a really lousy kisser