You’re traveling into area that’s next to a place that’s beside a location.
The sort of place that might contain a monster or some sort of magic mirror.
These are just some examples.
It could also be something really, really stupid.
At the rest stop ahead, a poorly stocked vending machine, a few wobbly picnic benches, a plaque to commemorate the Great Cabbage Fart Panic of 1909 placed by the Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks, and….
THE DERPONOMICON!
Picture if you will a man whose head is so far up his ass he could give himself a colon exam by opening his eyes. Enter one nameless prog. Here’s what he had to say about an exchange between anti-Jihad activist David Horowitz and a Muslim college student who admitted she favored the annihilation of Jews:
First of all, I am pretty sure the woman asking the question is a plant, probably the speaker payed to be there to sensationalize his issues with Muslims. It’s highly doubtful anyone would be that open about their anti-semitism, particularly on a college campus. The assertion here is that this somehow represents the sentiments of all American Muslims or Muslims in general. You know, kind of like anti-semites insist all Jews own the banks and are money grubbing shiesters that need to be stopped. Or how the Westboro Baptists are glad soldiers die because God hates fags. Holding up extremists of any type as representative of an entire group worthy of condemnation, is no different that what the extremists are doing in the first place. In essence, extremists use an extreme minority within a group, to justify condemnation of that entire group. Someone using this video to justify their disdain and distrust of Muslims, is literally no different than posting an article about a black murderer or rapist and using it as an example to justify your hatred of black people. It is the same as equating the Westboro Baptists or Pat Robertson to ALL Christians. It’s like equating Anders Breivik and Wade Michael Page to ALL conservatives. By pointing out extreme examples as justification for bigotry, you are in essence fitting the definition of an extremist. And I am sure you will say I do that all the time….but my intent is exactly that, to show conservatives what it’s like to be lumped in and judged by your craziest extremists. And very rarely do I ever hear a conservative denounce these extremists amongst them, only deflect, defend, deny. Never do I hear “That guy is an as shoe and doesn’t represent my views.” It’s always “But Al Sharptown said this…..or Reverend Wright said that….” As a born Jew, living in am orthodox Jewish neighborhood, I can admit that just about 99% of the Jewish faith is based on their persecution. Literally nearly every holiday and every story in the Old Testament is about the Jews overcoming someone trying to exterminate them. So I wouldn’t doubt for a second, that this guy would have a plant say these things at his lecture to further his agenda.
A baseless accusation of dishonesty. At least this is a different excuse. More deflection and Tu Quoqe.
“It’s highly doubtful anyone would be that open about their anti-semitism, particularly on a college campus.”
Man, that line gets funnier every time I read it.
Next: his response to this video of how the mainstream media tries to deflect attention from the link between Islamic teachings and terrorism
Where do you find these future mall shooters videos exactly? …..Yes Islam seemingly has more extremists than most religions, particularly in other countries where fundamentalist religious zealots control the laws and government, exactly how the religious zealots in THIS country would like to. The problem of course, is that in THIS country, Islamic fundamentalists are not a major issue. You are about ten times more likely to be murdered by a cop, than a Muslim terrorist. The rights obsession with Islam and creeping Sharia law makes about as much sense as equating all Christians to the Westboro Baptists. ALL religions and ALL groups have their extremist crazies, and at the top of the list of threats to national security and terrorist plots, white supremacist Christian militia groups outnumber Islamic fundamentalist t going threats nearly 10 to 1. I am more terrified of a truck full of bearded rednecks on some country back road than I am of a brown guy on a plane. In fact Muslims are much more likely to be attacked or murdered by Christian supremacists in this country than the other way around. Anders Breivik and Wade Michael Page are perfect examples of what all the recent anti-Islam rhetoric produces and it is Muslims, not Christians that are now in the line of fire. White Christian supremacists have infiltrated nearly every level of our government and are as we speak introducing, writing, and passing legislation that has a real effect on the public, a power that Muslims of any stature will NEVER have in this country. Meanwhile we have Christians homophobic, racist, sexist, religiously intolerant zealots in positions of power decrying Islam for being homophobic, sexist, racist, and religiously intolerant. The truth of the matter is no matter what the religion, religious extremists are dangerous to everyone, but in this country the most effective a day dangerous ones are most certainly NOT of the brown persuasion.
Deflection, Tu Quoqe, and then the race card. It’s a regular derp sundae.
“Yes Islam seemingly has more extremists than most religions, particularly in other countries where fundamentalist religious zealots control the laws and government, exactly how the religious zealots in THIS country would like to.”
Contrast of religious fundamentalists
This is a real masterpiece here: conflating violent Muslims fundamentalists with non-violent Christian fundamentalists and what Muslim terrorists actually do with what Christian fundamentalists might (read: wouldn’t) do.
“Islam seemingly has more extremists than most religions…”
But it’s all an illusion! Pay no attention to those dead French cartoonists behind the curtain!
It’s highly doubtful anyone would be that open about their anti-semitism, particularly on a college campus.
That struck me as borderline crazy, because once someone goes to college a magic wand passes over their head, destroying all bad thoughts.
Sometimes they are so naive, you almost feel bad for them.
If he has any Muslim friends, he should ask them what they honestly think about Jews. The answers may be enlightening.
I have a very devout muslim friend, and he knows I’m (((one))), so either he doesn’t really care or he is playing the very long game.
My cousin married a guy who’s father was a Muslim married to a Jew.
If a Muslim marries a Jew, do they raise their kids Christian as a compromise?
Nah, this guy was a total pot-smoking welfare loving Social Democrat hippie.
Not to go deeper down the hole here, but this is a big difference in most branches of Christianity and Judaism and Islam. Most christians don’t consider themselves a part of the church until they make a conscious and public vow of faith. Whereas Judaism and Islam confer the faith upon one at birth or at a ceremony that takes place before the participant had agency to decide for himself.
The concept of being a certain religion without choosing to believe is foreign to me.
I was watching a video about the history of Early Judaism, and it almost seems like Judaism is as much a cultural and ethnic identity as much as a religious one. You can call yourself a Jew without believing in the tenets of Judaism, because ethnically or culturally you are.
It does seem foreign to me as well, but I guess that’s because Christianity is purely a religious identity.
Christians and Jews state that a child is the faith of their mother, even if they have never professed the faith. In Islam, a child is the faith of their father, even if they have never professed the faith
Christians and Jews state that a child is the faith of their mother, even if they have never professed the faith.
Not any of the Christians I’ve been associated with. From Baptists to Catholics to Episcopals to Lutherans.
I’m with Sloopy. That’s news to me.
It is true about Catholics and the Orthodox faith. I cannot speak for all Christian denominations, as they are too many.
This doesn’t mean that they are automatically in the Church, it only means that the faith traditions of Jews and most Christians is that the child follow the faith of his mother. Whereas, for Muslims it is that the child follow the faith of his father
What Christians are you talking about?
Whole branches of Protestantism intentionally and emphatically hold that infant baptism is wrong as a core doctrine because they believe a person must be fully aware before accepting Christ. This view is held by Anabaptists (Amish, Mennonites, Hutterites) and Baptists (loosely, most “evangelicals” in the Anglosphere).
Even those forms of Christianity where infant baptism is common don’t consider anyone to be truly professing the faith until Confirmed which happens in adolescence at the earliest and is done by choice.
There are, of course, cultural pressures to accept the faith in conservative religious communities, but I don’t know of any Christian sect that is matrilineal in determining faith. Maybe Messianic Jews but they are not your typical Christians.
No, it’s not. I was raised Catholic and no one ever talked about someone being Catholic because of their mother. In fact, the Church holds that both parents must be Catholic in order for their marriage to be recognized. Not only is the mother’s faith not more important than the father’s, both are in fact irrelevant because it is baptism not lineage that makes one a Catholic. As I already noted, cultural biases affect perceptions, but the Church does not adhere to matrilinealism in the slightest.
I know someone (a woman) who was raised by a Greek Orthodox father and an Anglican mother who was expected to be Greek Orthodox (she’s neither, by choice). I had Coptic Orthodox friends growing up and while their worship was segregated by sex, there was no preference for the mother’s beliefs. I know less about Orthodox Christianity but I have never heard of matrilinealism there either.
Canon 29
1. By virtue of baptism, a child who has not yet completed his fourteenth year of age is enrolled in the Church sui iuris of the Catholic father; or the Church sui iuris of the mother if only the mother is Catholic or if both parents by agreement freely request it, with due regard for particular law established by the Apostolic See.
2. If the child who has not yet completed his fourteenth year is: (1) born of an unwed mother, he is enrolled in the Church sui iuris to which the mother belongs; (2) born of unknown parents, he is to be enrolled in the Church sui iuris of those in whose care he has been legitimately committed are enrolled; if it is a case of an adoptive father and mother, 1 should be applied; (3) born of non-baptized parents, the child is to be a member of the Church sui iuris of the one who is responsible for his education in the Catholic faith.
Canon 30
Anyone to be baptized who has completed the fourteenth year of age can freely select any Church sui iuris in which he or she then is enrolled by virtue of baptism received in that same Church, with due regard for particular law established by the Apostolic See.
Quote:
Can. 111 §1. Through the reception of baptism, the child of parents who belong to the Latin Church is enrolled in it, or, if one or the other does not belong to it, both parents have chosen by mutual agreement to have the offspring baptized in the Latin Church. If there is no mutual agreement, however, the child is enrolled in the ritual Church to which the father belongs.
§2. Anyone to be baptized who has completed the fourteenth year of age can freely choose to be baptized in the Latin Church or in another ritual Church sui iuris; in that case, the person belongs to the Church which he or she has chosen.
Can. 112 §1. After the reception of baptism, the following are enrolled in another ritual Church sui iuris:
1/ a person who has obtained permission from the Apostolic See;
2/ a spouse who, at the time of or during marriage, has declared that he or she is transferring to the ritual Church sui iuris of the other spouse; when the marriage has ended, however, the person can freely return to the Latin Church;
3/ before the completion of the fourteenth year of age, the children of those mentioned in nn. 1 and 2 as well as, in a mixed marriage, the children of the Catholic party who has legitimately transferred to another ritual Church; on completion of their fourteenth year, however, they can return to the Latin Church.
§2. The practice, however prolonged, of receiving the sacraments according to the rite of another ritual Church sui iuris does not entail enrollment in that Church.
1. That wall of text appears to be from multiple sources. If you’re going to copy and paste without bothering to provide context or commentary, at least provide clear citations.
2. The part that I can actually source seems to be the Code of Canon Law, which says (in your own quote!) preference is given to the father’s faith, if baptism has occurred but the parents disagree, and only until the child is 14 at which point it’s up to him/her to decide on his/her own.
3. The relevance of Canon Law to Protestants is about equal to that of the Koran.
I corrected myself early on and specifically stated ‘Catholics’ and ‘Orthodox’. The quotes are all from Cannon law.
I’m not sure why you are so upset by this conversation, but I’m more than happy to concede the point, since this seems to be less important to me than it is to you. Good day
My mother was raised Pentecostal while my father Catholic. They honestly didn’t give a shit what to raise us. My father was ready to raise us Protestant until his brother put the kibosh on that. So my mother, rather than get between two brothers, went with Catholic. But then my grandfather got upset and apparently there had been friction between my mother and her father.
You can’t win even when you try to be fair where religion is concerned.
Fair enough, and I won’t belabor the point.
I would like to apologize for the dickishness of my attitude and my aggressive tone. I did not mean to be an asshole.
At that point Rufus, did anyone decide to Jihad you for those choices, or did you simply get told you would be going to hell (where I am since all my friends will be there and I have been already offered a management position)?
Alex,
It never went beyond much. But I do swear the Pastor in the family always looked at us crooked.
Most Muslims do not have issues with Jews, in general. You are just as likely to find your average Muslim say no ill will toward Jews as you would find from your average atheist (of the non-Leftist variety, obviously)
By and large, it seems to me that when you cut the political power out from under a particular religion, it loses it’s vitriol for violent actions (barring the usual extremists and militants of course.)
In my experience on average Western second generations don’t give a shit, first generations from outside the Levant and some key states (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc.) only dislike them and tend to have some weird bullshit conspiracy theories about them, and first generations from inside the Levant, particularly in countries recently at war with Israel, go full on delusional nonsense and hatred (I had one guy at a job claim that IDF members beheaded his family, which, you know, is totally the IDF’s MO, and say some favourable things about Hitler).
This dude is off the boat Pakistani. I asked him about the shit going on in Pakistan and he did a bunch of handwaving, but he did admit that most muslims do not follow the teachings of Muhammad (at least the way he interprets them) and instead go off frothing at the mouth about Islam. There was one point where he and my other friend were talking about politics and the Paki starting going on about “The banks that own all the money and control the world” which is when I got a big spongebob smile on my face and forcefully restrained myself by asking “Oh, what banks would those be? Who owns those banks?”
forcefully restrained myself *from* asking. Obviously not enough baileys in my coffee.
There’s obviously a range between “doesn’t care”, “thinks Jews control the financial world” and “drive them into the sea”, but I’ve never encountered the truly scummy murder-fantasies outside of countries that were formerly at war with Israel, and a lot of that comes off as just garbage propaganda.
This is an old anti-Semitic trope and there’s a zero percent chance the person who rote that is actually Jewish.
Christians celebrate their persecution, too. Half of the saints were martyred and their messiah was literally crucified for his ministry. What a bad anti-Semitic argument.
This is really what distinguishes Muslims from Christians. Both faiths assign high praise to ‘martyrs’. But, in the Christian context, a ‘martyr’ is one who dies for his faith. He smiles while facing his executioner. In Islam, a ‘martyr’ is one who dies fighting for his faith. He takes out a few apostates before he meets his end.
One is noble and the other is perverse
Christians are martyered when they try to convince people to believe in what they believe in and someone resists to their passive advances with violence.
Muslims martyr themselves by instigating violence against those who refuse to acquiesce. That violence often results in death of their target, many innocents and themselves. I cannot remember a Christian martyr that meets that description.
Don’t you know that all problems in Muslim-majority countries are caused by Christians spearheading a modern Crusade? Muslims wouldn’t be forced to defend themselves by knifing schoolchildren or blowing up crowds of people if not for Christian fundamentalists like Bush picking fights with them.
You have obviously forgotten about this.
ChristiansCatholics celebrate their persecution, too. Half of the saints were martyred…FIFY
Oh, come now. Also Orthodox.
ChristiansCatholics and Orthodox Christians celebrate their persecution, too. Half of the saints were martyred…Those crazy Jews tricked the Nazis into killing them so they could claim persecution!!!
The greatest trick the devil ever played was letting his enemies slaughter him.
I’m saying that Jews are the devil, obviously.
Holding up extremists of any type as representative of an entire group worthy of condemnation, is no different that what the extremists are doing in the first place.
These little sprouts of self-awareness crop up, only to be burned to the ground by an immediate application of derpy projection.
In fact Muslims are much more likely to be attacked or murdered by Christian supremacists in this country than the other way around.
I love the way one of his two examples (Brevik) of this didn’t happen in this country, neither involved an attack on Muslims, and neither attacker was a “Christian supremacist” – Wade was more of a white nationalist, if anything, and Brevik seems like more of a nutter. I don’t think either was particularly “Christian”.
“In fact Muslims are much more likely to be attacked or murdered by Christian supremacists in this country than the other way around.”
What complete madness. The craziest thing is that the rich white liberals that spout this nonsense live in cosmopolitan cities where the most ‘Christian’ person they’ll meet is a non-practicing Methodist (no offense to any Methodists). This really speaks more to their opinion of the rest of the country (outside of their pasty white cities) than anything.
I love how he just makes shit up and then uses his completely made-up and completely false nonsense to argue as though he has an actual valid point.
And the number of hate crimes in Western countries is still overwhelmingly anti-Semitic anyway. And even then it’s not like Jews are regularly being massacred by ‘Christian supremacists’, it’s people writing shit on synagogues. Guy’s just having persecution fantasy.
Aren’t the charters of the PLO, Hezbollah, Hamas, etc… all pretty open about their genocidal aspirations?
The Quran itself is pretty unequivocal.
They’re all pretty open, though only the Hamas Charter admits it’s “Jews” they want to kill. The PLO and Hezbollah say “Zionist” or “Israel”
Also, the Hezbollah Charter tells Christians “We don’t have a problem with you, so long as you convert to Islam”
Nah brah. Thanks but no thanks.
I wonder how well this was received by Christian Palestinians
Aren’t those as rare as the easter bunny and/or santa claus?
There are LOTS of Christians in Israel: especially Orthodox and Copts, but also Latin (RC) and Protestant. They catch hell from both sides.
Videos like this have me wondering if it wouldn’t be a good idea to drop a few of those MOAB’s on Detroit.
Save your bombs (and dollars), rampant progressivism will do the job more completely than a couple conventional weapons.
How true.
“In other global warming news, a tornado hit downtown Detroit, putting out several fires.”
Could you summarize, Brochettaward? I don’t have FB and it’s asking me to sign in to watch.
Just a mob attacking what looks to be three guys in the streets as people around film on their phones. The typical shit, really.
I was in that exact area of Detroit last year to see IAMX play. I said to my wife: “Let’s not come here again.”
There’s nothing but a casino, some restaurants, and some nearby stadiums. All surrounded by derelict buildings that would make a 1990s Yugoslavia proud.
When I was a kid, we were going up to New York to visit my brother who was stationed at Fort Drum. Long story short, some shit happened with the airlines so we rented a car, and we didn’t know how to properly work the GPS system, which got us lost in downtown Detroit, right in the middle of the hood. I decided right then and there I was never coming back to that city unless I absolutely had no choice.
The aspect of Islam that is least understood by average people is predestination. It should be noted that when Christians embrace that belief, they start exhibiting the same kinds of behaviors. The difference between the Westboro Baptist Church and other Christian denominations, for instance, is that Wetboro believes in predestination. If their ideas on that subject dominated the culture, our practices would look a lot like Islam does on some of these issues.
To see things through their eyes, try to abandon your Christian sense of free will for a moment. In mainstream Christianity, people sin because they’ve separated themselves from God through their sinful actions, and their sinful actions are a result of them willfully separating themselves from God. It doesn’t work like that in Islam. In Islam, nothing happens against God’s will. To suggest someone could do something against God’s will is blasphemy. If people sin, it’s because God has made them sin. Evil people sin because that is God’s will.
Understand, for instance, that in Islam, Jesus also lived a perfect life–and that is why God would never have let him die on the cross. In standard Islam, Jesus never died. They know that God would never let Jesus die like that because he was a righteous man. In standard Islam, you cannot do things that are against God’s will. You cannot kill Jesus unjustly. And the bad things that happen to you happen because God wills them–because you were destined to suffer that way maybe before you were born.
To a terrorist, if God didn’t want him to massacre civilians, then God wouldn’t have let him massacre them. If civillians were massacred, that simply proves that they were evil. That’s what screaming “God is great” is all about.
Christianity contended with the same sort of thinking through Calvinism. We’ve seen a recent resurgence of the idea through mainstream philosophy outside of religion, too. How many academic philosophers teaching in our universities are neither determinists nor compatibilists anymore? This libertarian finds himself retreating to compatibilism–how can a scientifically minded person deny that consequences are a consistent function of the circumstances that created them? If the results of the experiment are different next time, it’s because something about the circumstances of the experiment changed. Could the consequences be other than what they were given the circumstances? Could you have chosen differently in the same set of circumstances? It’s getting harder and harder for free will to stand on its own, sans compatibilism, in a scientific age, and, yeah, that doesn’t auger well for libertarianism.
Anyway, the issues we see with Islam are mostly a function of that belief in predestination. It seems so alien to the western mind steeped in the belief that Jesus died to prove that God’s creation is unjust in its present form, that Jesus died so that we could have a choice. That bad things happen to good people against God’s will. That rights are the ability to make a choice for yourself, and that freedom of choice is important.
it’s that one aspect of the religion that really needs to be singled out as the problem–predestination. Arguing that free will and predestination are compatible is probably the long term solution. It’s the same solution to determinism in secular society. Incidentally, I’ve been contemplating a submission on libertarian paternalism. No, that’s not something I made up, and it isn’t something I advocate either. It’s an attempt to bring libertarian thought into the mainstream of public policy by making it compatible with progressive authority making determinations about what is best for us. Ultimately, it ends up like telling us that we’re not really slaves if we get to choose our own masters. The problem there is determinism, as well–they think our outcomes are already fixed. They just want to help us make the right choices sooner.
Blaming Islam is too broad–the problem is predestination. Pray to Mecca all you want. Abstain from alcohol and eating pig. Go on pilgrimage, and celebrate Ramadan. But god save us all from people who are sure of what’s right, what’s going to happen, and how to make us all do what needs to be done–because it’s all going to happen anyway, and I don’t care if you’re talking about Muslims, Marxists, Calvinists, or libertarian paternalists, even if the future were known and inevitable, that would still be no excuse to violate anybody’s rights.
I don’t say this often because I don’t want to get a bad rep around here, but I would read that article.
I know a few Christians who believe in election: That is, that God predestines you for heaven, and you don’t really have free will. It’s a pretty minority belief though. And obviously not taken to the extreme like Islam.
I’ve often heard that God predestines us for heaven, and we have to choose to avoid that destiny.
I think that’s pretty standard Christian thinking–and it’s an attempt to deal with predestination when it comes up in discussion.
That’s basically how mainstream Christianity came to terms with that aspect of Calvinism, and it more or less morphed and survived in that “compatibilist” form.
Let’s hope Muslims do likewise.
What I’ve heard in talking to these people at least (and where they come into conflict with mainstream Christianity) is that it works basically like this: God predestines people for Heaven, and they don’t have any free will in the matter, because then otherwise that conflicts with the idea of God being all-powerful and in control of everything. So, if you were, say, an atheist (or Muslim) who experienced something and became a born-again Christian, the idea that you made the choice yourself is an illusion; God was already converting you and that just happened to be the moment that you understood what was happening.
They also don’t believe that everyone can make it into heaven. Rather they think that God only came to save a few people. (Usually it’s either whatever church they belong to, or in some cases, they believe it’s only the Israelites.)
I was raised Calvinist – heck, both my parents went to Calvin College – but by the 1970s-1980s the church did not have the sway as it once did. Membership numbers of the CRC are declining.
Hell, I’m an atheist and I don’t believe in free will. We have an illusion of free will. I behave as if I did have free will because it’s really my only choice, but I don’t actually have it.
Or let me be more precise. I don’t have conscious</em free will.
Ugh. Here let me close the tag
Islam, as a whole, does not believe in predestination. There are certain actions (such as martyrdom) that will ensure you paradise in the Islamic faith, but predestination holds to the notion that what you do in life will have no effect on where you end-up in the afterlife. An article on predestination would be an interesting read, though. Those damn Calvinists
Predestination is central to Islam.
That God predestined you for martyrdom is a testament to your holiness.
“Qadar (Arabic: قدر, transliterated qadar, meaning “fate”, “divine fore-ordainment”, “predestination”)[1] is the concept of divine destiny in Islam.[2] It is one of Islam’s six articles of faith, along with belief in the Oneness of Allah, the Revealed Books, the Prophets of Islam, the Day of Resurrection and Angels. ”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_in_Islam
Perhaps we are confusing terms. ‘Predestination’, as I understand it, relates to your status in the afterlife. Catholics hold that in order to reach heaven, one must have attained ‘grace’ (an ill defined combination of good works and faith). Protestants believe that one needs ‘faith alone’ to reach heaven. Muslims, I believe, are closer to the Catholic ‘grace’ requirement.
What you seem to be discussing is ‘determinism’, whether or not your lot in life has been preordained by God.
Everything that happens, happens because of the will of Allah. You’re destined to be a martyr if you become a martyr. The history’s already written, you’re just playing the role of an actor. It’s why ISIS is obsessed with picking a fight with ‘Rum’ (Rome/the United States), it’s supposed to be the marker of the beginning of the end times when Muhammad and Jesus come back.
There’s mild benefits to it as well. Jihadists are crappy shots for a reason.
You make choices, but it’s all been predetermined.
You can make choices, but you can’t go off script.
I don’t to give away any spoilers on Westworld, but anybody else remember that one scene? it all seemed so beautiful that they finally found a way to override their programming.
And then the camera pans out, you see the audience applaud, and realize that was just . . .
I’m hoping the next season is all about determinism. We’re not so different from the robots–or are we? That’s the season I’d write.
I can’t help but think of the 90s Bruce Greenwood series Nowhere Man for some reason.
predestination holds to the notion that what you do in life will have no effect on where you end-up in the afterlife
Predestination is the notion that what you do in life isn’t entirely up to you because God created you knowing whether or not you’d be saved. Good ol’ TULIP.
Of course, you end up having to rationalize away massive portions of scripture, which gets you into single- and double-predestination, which are just feeble human attempts to fit a God existing outside of space and time into their little human-sized box. @Ken: Please write an article on this!!!
Ricky’s dad Ray on TPB is a Calvinist.
He uses it as an excuse for all of his failings as a person.
Ray: Nothing’s wrong with reading books, but there’s only one books that counts Julian, and that’s the Bible. It says to help your friends.
Julian: Oh yeah? Does it say anything about you ripping off insurance companies, pretending to be in a wheelchair then gettin’ caught drunk, dancin’ with hos making porn flicks? Huh? Anything in your book about that, Ray?
Ray: [pause] It’s open to interpretation, Julian, it’s the Bible.
Lol. Ray was hilarious.
A buddy is getting into the series. His wife is from Ontario and hates it and hates him for liking it.
Hey, there’s nothing wrong with making fun of the Maritimes’ trailer trash.
*reads part about Calvinism*
*slowly taps book on Wesleyan Arminianism, self satisfied*
The aspect of Islam that is least understood by average people is predestination. It should be noted that when Christians embrace that belief, they start exhibiting the same kinds of behaviors.
Can’t wait to wake up one morning overwhelmed by the urge to put on a suicide vest and walk into a Sbarros.
Was the NYC style pizza that bad?!
What do you know about the 30 years war? It was as brutal in its own way as anything in the Syrian civil war.
Life under Calvin in Geneva could be pretty extreme. Sort of like ISIS.
My understanding was that there weren’t any violins played in Geneva for decades.
There were religious police that would stop in at your home and make sure everything was nice and Calvinist.
The punishments for erring against God were brutal and extreme.
There are certain tendencies that go with predestination, and to the extent that Christians in the past have shared that doctrine, they have acted a lot like Muslim groups who also share that doctrine.
“Copernicus was branded a fraud, attendance at church and sermons was compulsory, and Calvin himself preached at great length three or four times a week. Refusal to take the Eucharist was a crime. The Consistory, which made no distinction between religion and morality, could summon anyone for questioning, investigate any charge of backsliding, and entered homes periodically to be sure no one was cheating Calvin’s God. Legislation specified the number of dishes to be served at each meal and the color of garments worn. What one was permitted to wear depended upon who one was, for never was a society more class–ridden. Believing that every child of God had been foreordained, Calvin was determined that each know his place; statutes specified the quality of dress and the activities allowed in each class.”
. . .
“Feasting” was proscribed; so were dancing, singing, pictures, statues, relics, church bells, organs, altar candles; “indecent or irreligious” songs, staging or attending theatrical plays; wearing rouge, jewelry, lace, or “immodest” dress; speaking disrespectfully of your betters; extravagant entertainment; swearing, gambling, playing cards, hunting, drunkenness; naming children after anyone but figures in the Old Testament; reading “immoral or irreligious” books; and sexual intercourse, except between partners of different genders who were married to one another.”
http://www.stephenhicks.org/2010/11/27/john-calvins-geneva/
Where have I heard all this before?
Correlation doesn’t equal causation, but similarities are still similar.
I think presdestination lends itself easily to ignoring other individual’s autonomy. When you’re sure what happens will be God’s will, certain similar ideas follow from that. If ISIS is Exhibit A, let Calvin’s Geneva be Exhibit B.
The way Calvin treated Michael Servetus was nothing short of how ISIS treats infidels.
But for real batshit-crazy, end-of-the-world type atrocities perpetrated by Christian heretics, you’ve gotta read about the Anabaptists in Munster, or the Taiping Rebellion in China. Both groups had a novel, unorthodox spin on Christianity. Their atrocities were nothing short of ISIS in both scale and inhumanity.
Maybe consider it from another angle.
If you think that there’s something about Islam that makes political actors under its influence act a certain way, why would it be controversial to point at a specific aspect of Islam as the likely culprit?
Do you imagine that Islam is inherently coercive regardless of its tenets? That doesn’t make any sense.
IF IF IF Islam lends itself to coercion, then that’s because of its beliefs. After all, it is a belief system.
I just see this more as your theological hobby horse looking for a platform than a causational argument. Much like the modalists arguing that trinitarian theology is demonic since it is taught by Rome.
And since, unlike Islam, christian predestinationalists don’t have a long and steady history of atrocities, I would say that identifying this one aspect of their belief as THE causational argument is weak.
In addition, many persons who hold to arminian theology, or whatever flavor of free-will theology you want, have also shown authoritarian tendencies. However, unlike you, I would never point the finger at their belief in God’s sovereignty as their animating force.
Pat Robertson? Why is he getting lumped in with the WBC as a Christian extremist? Did he do something that I didn’t hear about?
He’s said some pretty anti-gay inflammatory bullshit in the past. But I can’t recall him being outwardly assholish lately.
He better eat more of his age defying pancakes. He’s not looking too good these days.
Hell, I didn’t even know Pat Robertson was still around.
Which is exactly what the left does when it censors people, insisting that any language critical of their ideas “Creates an environment’ enabling violence”.
Terms like “enabling” or “fostering” are wonderfully convenient when you want to associate legitimate speech with hate-crimes.
There is a pretty terrible thread at Reason where some are pushing hard to try to say that the ‘anti-PC’ crowd is just as bad as the ‘pro-PC’ crowd, except they don’t use violence (which doesn’t seem to be a significant mitigating factor for some).
Is half of it John screaming at DanO?
It’s Sparky calling everyone who takes issue with Robbie’s convenient phrasing a ‘tribalist’. It’s a pretty sad display. It highlights well why I do not identify as a ‘libertarian’, as most of their institutions seem to make a lot of unfortunate compromises on issues that they supposedly care a lot about.
What thread, btw? is it this one? Or something else?
I’ve already had my say there. I still think its hilarious how he’s managed to perpetuate this “dear me! I am shocked at the illiberality of liberals!?”-posture for something like 4 years. “Why, its almost getting hard to deny there’s a problem!?”
It keeps pretending that a violent censorious mob has *good intentions*, and will be mollified if you pander to their concerns and throw your own, less-tactful, ostensible allies under the bus. Best of luck with that, Reason. Surely the battle for free speech will be won by a equivocating bouffant armed for a rhetorical pillow-fight.
Yes, that’s the one. Robbie is behaving like a good modern ‘libertarian’. He is behaving like a ‘coward’. When the neoconservatives at the Wall Street Journal are making fiercer denunciations against censors than so-called ‘libertarians’, then something is wrong. In this case, what is ‘wrong’ is that some people have put a higher price on cocktail parties than on defending principles.
It’s nuts that after writing for Reason all of these years and covering the endangerment of free speech on campuses and rape hoaxes, he refuse to call a spade a spade.
(sigh)
i do get your point, and i agree entirely.
i don’t know if the cocktail-parties metaphor really fully encompasses the Reason-brand-libertarian posture anymore. Because the fact is that the Wall St Journal editorial writers (*neocon or not) probably get more invites, DESPITE their stronger stance on basic classical-liberal ideals.
What seems so ridiculous is that the squishy, prog-lite compromises that Reason seem to want to take? don’t actually *get them anything in return*.
iow, “Not Even cocktail parties!!” Its a sort of ‘neither fish nor fowl’ political stance that makes them pathetic and useless to actual principled Civil Liberties advocates… and yet still doesn’t actually win them any credibility points from the POV of the mainstream Left.
When’s the last time you ever saw Reason magazine generously referred to in the pages of The Nation, TNR, or Mother Jones? Instead you’ll only see them mentioned when its something like, “These crazy people think printing guns w/ a computer should be legal!” or “they deny human trafficking is a problem! They want your kids to be whores!!”
I’d understand compromises if they accomplish something strategically important. But in some cases it seems like they purposely choose the lose-lose posture. (vision of Bill Weld appears in my mind)
You’re right. And I’m not defending the Wall Street Journal opinion page. I hate their hawkish, pro-crony capitalist positions, but I do read them, because they are the only major newspaper that doesn’t go along with the Left-wing zeitgeist.
I’m all for compromise on policy. But, I refuse to compromise, even an inch, on natural rights.
I wasn’t dinging you for mentioning them favorably; i just have a longstanding complaint (*i mean, like 12 years at this point) about the rampant misuse of the term “neoconservative”, and how people seem to think its just a fancy-term for “hawkish” when its not.
90% of the hawkishness in editorials lately are probably better-characterized by “humanitarian interventionism” rather than neconservative-leanings. (iow, Closer to “Bill Clinton vis a vis Serbia” than “George W Bush vis a vis Iraq”). I haven’t really seen anyone anywhere argue that ousting Assad would inevitably lead to a flourishing of Democracy in the middle east, or that vital US strategic interests are at stake; they just seem to think “it should be done because it CAN be done”
perhaps there are some editorialists who take a very realpolitik POV and tell the truth = we’re doing it because we’re siding with the saudis in a long-war via Iranian influence in the region. But even that wouldn’t be particularly neoconservative, because the latter is infused with a moralism about the use of US force for its own sake = because by smashing dictators, we assert the self-evidence of US primacy
How many are really
“Yes, that’s the one. Robbie is behaving like a good modern ‘libertarian’.”
I don’t think of Robby as a libertarian, and I’m not sure he thinks of himself as a libertarian.
In the past, I could dig up the thread, I pointed out that one of his “free speech” columns could just as easily pass for an anti-free speech column, and I pointed out that there was nothing libertarian about his position. I asked why anyone would read it and think it was libertarian.
Robby responded with the observation that it was written under Reason’s masthead, so it must be libertarian.
That’s not the way it works. That’s not the way libertarians think.
I don’t think of Robby as a libertarian. I don’t believe he thinks of himself as a libertarian, and I don’t recall ever seeing him claim to be a libertarian.
Journalism gigs are hard to come by, these days. If he hadn’t landed at Reason, he might be writing about Tesla for Road & Track.
I’ve tried to warn my daughter that she will probably run into this stuff when she starts college soon. She doesn’t believe me, of course. But my goal is to make sure that she knows it isn’t personally targeted at her, so that doesn’t really matter at this point.
I’m finishing college in a couple of weeks and while at the Business school, the concepts of microaggressions and hate speech are routinely mocked, overall it’s becoming the norm elsewhere on campus. Anyone who dares say something that goes against groupthink are at risk of being harassed.
I usually just describe myself as a lowercase libertarian. Ideologically, I believe a lot of what they stand for, but I despise the actual party and the institutions.
I call myself a ‘classical liberal’ now, instead. I would never identify as a ‘libertarian’, because the word has essentially no mean anymore
Time to coin a new term. Classical libertarian.
I refer to myself as a Neo-liberal but only because the term libertarian is sort of meaningless now and also to piss off my Progressive friends.
Lower-case “L” libertarian for me. I’m not going to let others ruin a perfectly good label.
Philosophically I refer to myself as a classical liberal but politically I call myself a Libertarian Republican (even though I fucking hate the GOP).
I usually call myself lower case libertarian, but political Independent, because all the parties here suck ass.
“Neoliberal” in the rest of the world means more or less what “fascist” became 20 years ago: a catchall term for “I don’t like what you believe so I’m going to use this buzzword to criticize it”.
That’s my biggest beef with establishment Libertarians. It’s not that I don’t mind compromising but whenever we do compromise with the Left, it’s usually us getting the shitty end of the stick. And if we call the Left out about this their response is usually, “You’re lucky that we’re letting you hang around us,” or “stop being so dogmatic.”
The worst part about Reason’s embrace of total compromise is that they get absolutely nothing out of it. They so badly want to be in with the “it” crowd in the journalistic circles but never realize that the Left will toss them without any sort of hesitation if it suits their purposes.
Oh, they’ll be part of that crowd eventually. Granted, there won’t be a shred of libertarianism left at Reason, but it’s a small price to pay.
In the end, Reason will be just another skin-suit mentioned by Iowahawk.
I know people are probably pretty sick of me posting this, but this is pretty much the problem with Reason as a whole: the majority of its writers are not part of the Libertarian tribe, they are part of the Pundit tribe, and they’ll reflexively agree or deter to the tribal opinion rather than stand up for the ideology they supposedly support.
This is also why Reason published shitty article after article defending Gawker’s Hulk Hogan idiocy. Because protecting the journalistic class is more important than defending privacy or Hogan’s property.
Supporting the libertarian ideology and defending it would make them outcasts in their field. It’s much easier to go along with the flow and not make any major waves.
Look at Glenn Greenwald. He’s a die hard Leftist but yet when I showed my Progressive acquaintances his articles when he dared exposed Obama’s many civil liberties violations and called bullshit on the Trump-Russia story, they either got angry and called him names or just ignored the articles. If it’s like that with people I know, I can only imagine how the media treats people who goes outside the orthodoxy.
I liked to point out that what Gawker did was just as bad as what News of the World did. But the former is right-thinking, while the latter is evil Murdoch.
FWIW, Sparky doesn’t identify as libertarian either.
I’ve seen him say that, but i’ve never bothered to ask = what exactly is the bug up his ass about, then? Meaning, he seems to think other people are *too doctrinaire* …. about a philosophy he doesn’t agree with in the first place?
“”Well, other than that, Mrs Lincoln….”
Besides that glaring bit of intellectual dishonesty, it’s a disingenuous argument to begin with. While there is some disagreement on the “pro-PC” side (e.g. trans-exclusionary vs. trans-inclusionary), the measure of it is quite narrow compared to the range of disagreement on the “anti-PC” side, if purely as a consequence of the definition of PC (i.e., a narrowing of acceptable discourse).
– when PC lefties use violence, well, its unfortunate because its an ineffective way to achieve their noble goals
(still, we should commend their “bash the fash” efforts regardless; and while doing so, ensure to re-affirm their claims that their opponents are “fascists”, and not, you know, just like people who disagree)
– when Anti-PC righties use hateful-derogatory speech/offensive memes, well its just unacceptable and beyond the pale!
(regardless if their nasty-talk is in the aid of fundamental principles with which we ostensibly agree. one should not hurt feelings while defending free-speech!)
Basically = “extremism in
defenseopposition of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit of justice isno virtuemandatory, lest you be thrown under a bus by your so-called ‘allies’““In fact Muslims are much more likely to be attacked or murdered by Christian supremacists in this country than the other way around.”
BULL FUCKEN SHIT. It pisses me off to no end when I hear people say such incredibly stupid things. The facts and data state otherwise. And if we’re going to claim persecution but one group has ALWAYS been targeted in Western civilization and that’s the Jews. Muslims have some kind of pair of balls and nerve to claim they’re anywhere near hate crimes on the level the Jews experienced.
NBC Sports writer: Stop triggering me with your American flags
As long as Calcaterra remains CONSISTENT with his ‘politics has no place in sports’ (though sometimes I wonder if that’s at all possible) including when SJW’s or progressives start with their own drivel.
I can’t wait to hear his scalding rhetoric against Kapernick for politicizing every football game he had participated in for the last 12+ months. In fact I think I will start holding my breath right now in anticipation. I’m sure he will publish it any moment now.
Well, those weren’t politic-politics.
Gonna pull a Brooks because threading is weird on my mobile:
“Why Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world… but for
Wales!cocktail parties!”I’m just an ordinary Midwestern boy with no insight on the Beltway social scene, but it does seem like they’re not getting a lot of mileage out of all the equivocating they’re doing.
Step 1: Align with leftist Beltway journalists
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profits are evil!
I will grant that there are plenty of Muslims who are not just “moderate” but fed up with the terrorists and fighting against same.
The problem for the media is that they fall for everyone who says “look at me, I’m a moderate Muslim,” even if they’re not moderate.
So the effect of this media coverage will be like the little shepherd boy in the fable
“Look over there, it’s a moderate Muslim!”
“Right, like I’m falling for *that* one again.”
They really seem to think that they can make reality what they want by controlling the narrative. But they consistently fail to realize that the dissonance between reality and the narrative is impossible to hide, and often prompts a disproportionate backlash.
That is the whole point of having a narrative.