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?

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