College loses 1/3 of faculty

Parent Cafe
101

<p>Did you or did you not say that “Christianity” has a brutal and ugly history. Is not that statement a broad categorization, which implicates ALL forms and practices, as well as all practitioners of the religion? </p>

<p>Let’s see. What do the following things have in common? The much hyped effort of one man to force the posting of the Ten Commandments in a municple courthouse, and the equally hyped attempts of a relative few to add creationism to Kansas’ science curriculum? Answer: Each attempt failed to pass Constitutional muster. </p>

<p>“When you have people [trying] to make laws so that gay people can not adopt children…when you have people [wanting] to cut funding to birth control (that is how it is banned, cutting funding, or allowing drugstores to not sell a prescribed drug)…when you have people [saying] that they don’t want to fund a vaccine for cervical cancer because it might promote premarital sex (against the bible) I see problems”</p>

<p>TRYING. WANTING. SAYING. Yeah, I see what you mean. Fundi dominion is imminent, especially since the rest of us are absolutely without representation or constitutional protection. What’s more, there will never be another Democrat in the White House, nor will Democrats ever again control The House or Senate. The built-in checks and balances of our system of Government are absolutely defenseless in the face of this Fundamentalist onslaught, especially when they board aircraft carrying bibles. I can see how your strategy of running around in circles, screaming, “The sky is falling!” is a logical response.</p>

102

<p>poet, in naming the various offenders, you forgot to mention another group: Bush and his RCF supporters in Iraq. The latest numbers (<a href=“http://www.iraqbodycount.org%5B/url%5D”>http://www.iraqbodycount.org</a>) show the civilian deaths in Iraq between 38960 and 43397 due to Bush’s intervention. Do you have the RMF numbers for the comparable period (including 9/11)? Both sides are causing horrible suffering.</p>

103

<p>* a drug store decides not to sell a drug, is that not an excercise of an individual’s liberty?*</p>

<p>not IMO
when you take a job that requires you to dispense medication legally prescribed by a physician, you don’t get to decide if the patient is too young, too old, too black, too indian, too rich or poor to receive the meds. If the medication is legal, then you dispense it- period.
Do I want a pharmacist to decide that because my medication is $150 a bottle and I am already 85 years old, and that funding could go towards medication for someone who is 25, that she isn’t going to dispense it?
Health care is between a doctor and their patient.</p>

104

<p>Vossron et al,</p>

<p>I was at first tempted to think of you–as you claim to be–a moderate. However, this is clearly not the case as far as this subject is concerned.</p>

<p>It is beyond disingenuous to claim that any form of Christianity has anything to do with the casualties in Iraq. The US, as a government and country, certainly does. In fact, in saying the USA we include Atheists, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists, Dead Beats and Philanthropists in their totality. </p>

<p>Often enough, when driven to specifics, the anti-war hecklers claim that it is the Neo-cons who are responsible for this war. There is something to that, but it does not exhaust the possibilities. Still, no clear sighted appraisal of the Neo-Cons would give anybody the impression that they are driven by Christianity—far from it, though there are some Christians involved in the Neo-Cons global and evangelical outlook (though not Christian evangelical—more Wilsonian Evangelism, a secular concoction to be sure). Take a look at Fracis F<em>ukuyama’s book “America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy” (F.F. is a former leading Neo-con) <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300113994/sr=8-4/qid=1152878155/ref=sr”>http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300113994/sr=8-4/qid=1152878155/ref=sr&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;1&lt;em&gt;4/103-4962523-9745433?ie=UTF8
which I reviewed here, <a href=“http://www.dartreview.com/archives/2006/05/18/honestly”>http://www.dartreview.com/archives/2006/05/18/honestly&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;who&lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt;these_people.php
I would not, in a million years, claim that the casualties in Iraq are due to Judaism, even thought the Neo-Con architects tend to be Jewish, by all accounts.</p>

<p>If what you mean to say is that a country rooted in Christianity is capable of war, and in war, killing and in killing, killing innocents…who would disagree (other than those who claim the US is not “rooted” in Christianity–as most of the nay-sayers do). It is the nature of secular governments to wage war, and other than the Vatican and perhaps a few other locales, all government is secular in that it is composed of laws not religious texts—not Biblical or Koranic interpretation or exegesis, not consulting the Bhagavad-Gita or the Guru Granath when declaring war. On the other hand, dissidents have tended to base their dissent on religious texts, from Ghandi, William Jennings Bryan, to Alexander Solzenhitsyn, to Martin Luther King, to Orhan Pamuk. </p>

<p>I believe you have it all backwards.</p>

<p>It is my opinion that this entire thread is driven by Anti-Christianism. Sometimes quite overt, as in the case of CGM (“a brutal and ugly history”—imagine saying that about Judaism: “Anti-Semitism” would be the clear and appropriate reply), other times covertly, as in the case of those who blame the death toll in Iraq on Fundamentalist Christianity. </p>

<p>My father taught me that the immature need heroes to grow, but he told me that the surprising thing–the thing that few factor in–is that those that need heroes always need villains, someone or something to hate—if for no more than the sake of definition: the violent antithesis to their enlightened thesis. </p>

<p>Clearly, there is a lot of irrational hate in this thread and, according to dad’s dictum, a lot of immaturity.</p>

<p>[Greybeard got out while the gettin’s good–smart guy Greybeard, even for a Baptist;) (inside joke)]</p>

105

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<p>Sufism? </p>

<p>in which case may I have the next dance?</p>

106

<p>well hanna, so much for slipping in under the radar onto the supreme court,…</p>

107

<p>We dance vertically, and as this world goes, alone–physically and metaphysically–the only direction, up. People like to watch, even though there is only one dance step involved…forgetting. </p>

<p>You know how to forget, don’t you? : )</p>

108

<p>yes, but sometimes I need reminding,…</p>

109

<p>I saw a documentary one time in which a young woman from Israel expressed her antipathy toward Christianity on the ground that “the Christians tried to kill us” during the Holocaust. Her comment both startled and pained me; my immediate reaction was to say to myself, “it was the Nazis who did that, not the Christians.” Further reflection on her comments led me to admit to myself that a typical Nazi probably would have identified himself as a Christian, at least nominally, and that the Nazis’ vile mytho-historical stew mixed some ingredients borrowed from Christianity with others borrowed from paganism, nationalism, and socialism. Sure, Hitler drew from an anti-Semitic tradition that had flourished for centuries in European churches. But it struck me as absurdly reductionistic to refer to Hitler as a Christian. Christian leaders have been rightly criticized for the inadequacy of their response to Hitler and the Nazis, but it’s too much of a stretch to characterize Nazism as a Christian movement.</p>

<p>Likewise, although Saddam Hussein has at times employed Islamic rhetoric, particularly since his capture, it’s overly simplistic to think of Ba’athism as an Islamic movement.</p>

<p>Religion has played an important role, historically, in bringing the murderous impulse under control. There are times, however, when the murderous impulse merges with religious fervor, and with the passions of national or tribal identity; when this happens, horrible things ensue. It’s a phenomenon we in the West associate these days with people we variously refer to as Islamo-Fascists, or Muslim terrorists, or Islamacists; throughout much of the Middle East, the phenomenon is associated with the Crusades. The Ku Klux Klan has in recent decades dwindled in power and membership to little more than a sick joke, but there was a time within living human memory when they exemplified a Christian version of the phenomenon perfectly. </p>

<p>What was once commonly referred to as “Godless Communism” took essentially the same psychological phenomenon, and substituted its own kind of quasi-religious fervor into the mix. (When I visited Chairman Mao’s mausoleum I recognized at once that I was in a kind of a temple.) The same horrors resulted from this modified recipe, on a vast scale.</p>

<p>What lessons should we take from this? From my own religious tradition, I leave you with this: Sure, the heart is evil, and desperately wicked. The best response, though, is to love them who curse you. “Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”</p>

<p>These are ideals worth aspiring to, in the world at large, and on this discussion board.</p>

110

<p>accurate, profound and beautiful thoughts, greybeard,…</p>

111

<p>It is interesting to read Hitler’s speeches, however, as he peppered them constantly with Christian reference. It was a veiled attempt to coral the masses to his fascist point of view, by means of religion. This is typically a successful method of bringing people in line, and is currently being used by fundamentalists of every religion.</p>

112

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<p>:) Well, we homobortionists had our day in the sun under Earl Warren. I think my old job working for Larry Tribe would probably be enough to keep me off the bench nowadays even if I eased up on the Internet rants.</p>

113

<p>Quote: “abortion : Not a right. protections for gays: Not a right.”</p>

<p>Well, that really says it all, doesn’t it? What’s the difference between being opposed to someone’s rights and unilaterally declaring that those rights don’t exist?</p>

114

<p>FS, disingenuous? Really? Bush, a Fundamentalist Christian, has said repeatedly that God speaks to him. Woodward wrote about going to war in Iraq: </p>

<p>“Did Mr. Bush ask his father for any advice? “I asked the president about this. And President Bush said, ‘Well, no,’ and then he got defensive about it,” says Woodward. “Then he said something that really struck me. He said of his father, ‘He is the wrong father to appeal to for advice. The wrong father to go to, to appeal to in terms of strength.’ And then he said, ‘There’s a higher Father that I appeal to.’”</p>

<p>Bush also said that he did not consult any key cabinet members about going to war. This war is very much one man’s decision, based, he says, on Christian guidance.</p>

<p>Both sides use religion to justify killing. This is not moderate.</p>

115

<p>Not equivalent but not entirely rational, either.</p>

116

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<p>I think you are confused. I didn’t decide. Any rational definition of a political right does not encompass abortion.</p>

117

<p>Fountain,</p>

<p>I agree with the first part of your post. Where I digress is when you say this whole thread is Anti-christianism (I’ll leave out the bolding!).</p>

<p>IF you had said anti-evangelical, in the more current sense (not as Lutherans consider themselves, by contrast)(The current name for one large group of Lutherans is The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), I might agree. </p>

<p>Some of us here, at least, object to others telling us how we should live, or limiting our choices, be them entertainment, health care, education, whatever.</p>

118

<p>o happy day when Hanna acknowledges my remarks. Truth is, though I don’t agree with many of your heartfelt social views, I would happily see you on a higher court,…but then I am the fairest of them all</p>

119

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<p>I’m sorry, you didn’t say it doesn’t exist. You said that the people who think it exists aren’t rational.</p>

<p>Rights don’t only come out of the sky, or the Constitution. They can be conferred by law. For example, in Wisconsin, you have a right to register to vote on election day. That’s a right that exists only in Wisconsin, and the right exists at the pleasure of the Wisconsin legislature, but it is an enforceable right nonetheless. (And a political right, if you’re attempting to narrow the topic of our conversation.)</p>

<p>Most rational people who oppose abortion would agree that a limited right to abortion has been recognized by law in this country. They just think that the law is wrong, and/or that the right isn’t based in the Constitution. That’s very different from the right not existing at all.</p>

120

<p>I should clarify: The equivalence I cite is the <em>invocation</em> of religion by fundamentalists on both sides as a justification for actions. There are, of course, other similarities between Christianity and Islam: The peaceful nature of the vast majority of adherants, and the roots in Judaism.</p>