why do so many ILXors (including myself) have so much hostility to religious people?

This is maybe the unintentionally funniest thing I've read today.

what about the ilxors who are of a particular faith(protestant, jewish, catholic, etc)?

part of it has to do with the fact that the folks most overly vocal about their beliefs in the last 30 years here in America tend to be reactionary fuckheads who are claiming God's Righteousness in trying to enact really conservative and usually otherwise unjustifiable policies.

Again, folks, the Moral Majority was never a religious groups; it's a political one.

also, part of it could involve with folks who were burned by their religous experience in the past, and becuase they can't believe, no one can believe.

in both cases, religion(or spirituality or anything like that) becomes a club to beat over the heads of others who don't necessarily think exactly the way you do.

Tender love is blind
It requires a dedication
All this love we feel
Needs no conversation
We ride it together, ah-ah
Makin' love with each other, ah-ah

Chorus:

Islands in the stream
That is what we are
No one in-between
How can we be wrong
Sail away with me to another world
And we rely on each other, ah-ah
From one lover to another, ah-ah

I can't live without you if the love was gone
Everything is nothin' if you got no one
And you did walk in tonight
Slowly loosen' sight of the real thing

But that won't happen to us and we got no doubt
Too deep in love and we got no way out
And the message is clear
This could be the year for the real thing

No more will you cry
Baby, I will hurt you never
We start and end as one, in love forever
We can ride it together, ah-ah
Makin' love with each other, ah-ah

I find it amusing that I have found myself in the position of being the Defender Of The Religious on ILE and the only reason I'm in church every Sunday for nine months out of the year is because I'm being paid to be there.

i have deep respect for religious people, i just don't think many "religious" people are as religious as they think they are.

w3rd

Um, so what? I don't understand what point you're trying to make here. That people who try to measure up to certain standards and fail are worthy of derision?

his point (i think) is that thinking being religious is about ramming obscure parts of Dueteronomy into the law books is massively wrong-headed

how would a non-religious person know how to be "properly religious" anyway?

how do religious people know how to be religious?

That's your answer for everything!

While I do occasionally fly off the handle about this, I don't think that holding such a view makes me childish, or "bigoted."

But that's because they're stupid, not because they're religious.

all your saying (to my ears) is that because i have been denied any special revelation i cannot say in any capacity what being "religious" is?

that's fair enough i guess. but it's really the end of all discussion isnt it?

well yeah that's exactly my point, Dan! doesn't there come a point at which one says "look, this doctrine is x years old and people keep saying it's eventually gonna effect some great global good at some point, but instead, for whatever great effort it admittedly undertakes from time to time, it displaces whole cultures, interferes with people's personal rights, backs outrageously backwards political positions, and generally messes with people's shit!" Every communist I know used to pull the "Communism's never really been put into play" line, but if every country ever to begin with the idea of practicing real communism has failed utterly, isn't it fair (or at least: not "bigoted") to ask whether there might not be something fundamentally wrong with the doctrine?

But that's because they're stupid, not because they're religious.

i know plenty of nice, reasonable people who are christians (including my parents. though they're catholic so they're "papist mary worshippers"). certainly i dont hate them for having beliefs i disagree violently with. but i like these people in spite of their beliefs.

I don't have any problem with christianity, i'm a member of the methodist church, but i'm agnostic.. and i don't feel like reading the bible.

Experience.

well, yeah, totally, and this is where you & I (and Dan & me) agree about a reality but differ on what makes it the way it is. I view the Christian theology that aided & abetted women's liberations as conveniently Christian; I don't think its ideology springs from Christianity, but rather arises from plain old reason (it doesn't take a complex ideology to note that men & women ought to have the same rights) and is then sort of welded to an existing philosophy whose power is pretty much necessary to get any ideas advanced. (This is not to impugn the sincerity of, say, Elizabeth Cady's faith, just a description of a not-uncommon syncretic philosophical occurrance.) I think that the Bible, and the practice of Christianity throughout the ages stemming from it, is sexist; one Virgin Mary, a Rachel here or there - these are bones tossed out compared to twelve male disciples, Paul's totally hateful attitude toward women in general (vide him addressing the possibility of women being involved in church services), etc. I would argue that the Christian West (btw that's my new band name) has the most liberated women in the world precisely because the Christian West isn't as Christian as it used to be, and I hardly think of that as a particularly radical or even surprising position to hold.

(it's also not hard to see christianity as what created post-modernism, see vattimo, nietzsche, heidegger)

so isn't figuring out God's fundamentals a constant process, something you have to keep aspiring too, and not make the sinful mistake of pride by thinking you completely understand God's plan? (and isn't this just basically Heidegger and his notion of Being? yes, yes it is.)

ryan I gotta warn you, man, A Nairn does not get tired. Until you believe with your heart and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, he ain't gonna have nothin. And he has got answers to all your questions. They're in the same bible that says you should kill a prostitute by throwing rocks at her, only then Jesus was killed and that "fulfilled" that law. See? So that is all your questions right there.

How do you define God's fundamentals?

By asking for the Holy Spirit's life long guidance.

And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

dood my dad pulled that trick on me last Christmas. Fuckin wiseass.

I was brought up "christian" and gave up on it, because it didnt explain a thing. Taoism on the other hand, gets a lot closer to what I was after - no deity asks you to worship it, because there isn't one; only the Universe itself, which deserves our respect and awe. Look at science. Get into quantum physics and its all theory. But not because a "god" who we must worship made it - because the universe it just the amazing thing we will never fully know, so all we can do is try to understand how our life can best fit in with the indefatigable movement of life and being. Fight it, and you are miserable. Understand its flow, move with it, relax - and you will be much happier. That to me is truly understanding. Why waste your life being told there is "a god", "he" is angry, selfish, disapointed in his flock and regards everyone as fallen? What a sad, silly waste of this wonderful go-round in the amazing universe we get!

Christians can waste it in guilt and misery and opression and fear all they like - me, I want to wonder and marvel and work out this mysterious, neverending, incredibly complex chaos we live inside, thanks.

Heaven and Earth are impartial;
they treat all of creation as straw dogs.
The Master doesn't take sides;
she treats everyone like a straw dog.

The space between Heaven and Earth is like a bellows;
it is empty, yet has not lost its power.
The more it is used, the more it produces;
the more you talk of it, the less you comprehend.

It is better not to speak of things you do not understand.

I don't begrudge believers their beliefs as long as they leave me alone. The only religious people I'm actively hostile toward are blood-relation hypocrites (my useless Pentecostal relatives) and people who get in my face about it.
Other than that, I just don't see a reason to respect spiritual religious belief any more than I respect belief in haunted houses or banshees.

GET ONE HAIR SHIRT

this is my other new band name

(And nobody bring up the ID thread, this is NOT the ID thread, and he hasn't said anything terribly "damaging" here so far.)

And also, maybe the Bible isn't the foundation because he says so, maybe it is because he has faith in it and that's why he says so. It's not like he's trying to forcibly convert you or anything by having and stating a belief that isn't logically transmittable.

(300 more posts by morning, all centering around trying to make sense of Nairn's gibberish)

totally absolutely 101% OTM

And try to get away from having postmodern realtivistic individualistic tendencies so deeply ingrained in your thought.

I do and have done all these things, and will continue to do so. Thanks for being patronizing and not actually grasping any of the substance of what I've said though.

This is a running theme, assuming that since something is both old and popular it has validity.

Onward, Moderate Christian Soldiers
By JOHN C. DANFORTH
Published: June 17, 2005

IT would be an oversimplification to say that America's culture wars are now between people of faith and nonbelievers. People of faith are not of one mind, whether on specific issues like stem cell research and government intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo, or the more general issue of how religion relates to politics. In recent years, conservative Christians have presented themselves as representing the one authentic Christian perspective on politics. With due respect for our conservative friends, equally devout Christians come to very different conclusions.

It is important for those of us who are sometimes called moderates to make the case that we, too, have strongly held Christian convictions, that we speak from the depths of our beliefs, and that our approach to politics is at least as faithful as that of those who are more conservative. Our difference concerns the extent to which government should, or even can, translate religious beliefs into the laws of the state.

People of faith have the right, and perhaps the obligation, to bring their values to bear in politics. Many conservative Christians approach politics with a certainty that they know God's truth, and that they can advance the kingdom of God through governmental action. So they have developed a political agenda that they believe advances God's kingdom, one that includes efforts to "put God back" into the public square and to pass a constitutional amendment intended to protect marriage from the perceived threat of homosexuality.

Moderate Christians are less certain about when and how our beliefs can be translated into statutory form, not because of a lack of faith in God but because of a healthy acknowledgement of the limitations of human beings. Like conservative Christians, we attend church, read the Bible and say our prayers.

But for us, the only absolute standard of behavior is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. Repeatedly in the Gospels, we find that the Love Commandment takes precedence when it conflicts with laws. We struggle to follow that commandment as we face the realities of everyday living, and we do not agree that our responsibility to live as Christians can be codified by legislators.

When, on television, we see a person in a persistent vegetative state, one who will never recover, we believe that allowing the natural and merciful end to her ordeal is more loving than imposing government power to keep her hooked up to a feeding tube.

When we see an opportunity to save our neighbors' lives through stem cell research, we believe that it is our duty to pursue that research, and to oppose legislation that would impede us from doing so.

We think that efforts to haul references of God into the public square, into schools and courthouses, are far more apt to divide Americans than to advance faith.

Following a Lord who reached out in compassion to all human beings, we oppose amending the Constitution in a way that would humiliate homosexuals.

For us, living the Love Commandment may be at odds with efforts to encapsulate Christianity in a political agenda. We strongly support the separation of church and state, both because that principle is essential to holding together a diverse country, and because the policies of the state always fall short of the demands of faith. Aware that even our most passionate ventures into politics are efforts to carry the treasure of religion in the earthen vessel of government, we proceed in a spirit of humility lacking in our conservative colleagues.

In the decade since I left the Senate, American politics has been characterized by two phenomena: the increased activism of the Christian right, especially in the Republican Party, and the collapse of bipartisan collegiality. I do not think it is a stretch to suggest a relationship between the two. To assert that I am on God's side and you are not, that I know God's will and you do not, and that I will use the power of government to advance my understanding of God's kingdom is certain to produce hostility.

By contrast, moderate Christians see ourselves, literally, as moderators. Far from claiming to possess God's truth, we claim only to be imperfect seekers of the truth. We reject the notion that religion should present a series of wedge issues useful at election time for energizing a political base. We believe it is God's work to practice humility, to wear tolerance on our sleeves, to reach out to those with whom we disagree, and to overcome the meanness we see in today's politics.

For us, religion should be inclusive, and it should seek to bridge the differences that separate people. We do not exclude from worship those whose opinions differ from ours. Following a Lord who sat at the table with tax collectors and sinners, we welcome to the Lord's table all who would come. Following a Lord who cited love of God and love of neighbor as encompassing all the commandments, we reject a political agenda that displaces that love. Christians who hold these convictions ought to add their clear voice of moderation to the debate on religion in politics.

John C. Danforth is an Episcopal minister and former Republican senator from Missouri.