A rebuttal to the following post that liberal Christians are responsible for the thoughts and actions of the more zealous conservative ones:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5186160
"We spend lots of time pointing to the Muslim community and telling them that their religion of peace has been hijacked. We show them point after point after point and then we tell them if they want to save their religion -- if they truly are a religion of peace -- then *they* need to do what only *they* can do: CLEAN HOUSE.
I'm sorry if Christians are offended to be lumped in with the fundamentalists of their religion. Please remember, these zealots are a problem in *your* community which is affecting us all and endangering peace. Now, just like the Muslims, it is time for you to prove you are a religion of peace. *You* need to go do what only *you* can do: CLEAN HOUSE."
My thoughts on this:
Claiming that liberal Christians are the only ones who have to speak up when the conservative ones become hateful is no more fair than expecting the French to keep the Quebecois in line. Yes there is some common language there, but that's all the connection they have. If what conservative believers do is a threat to all of the American public, then it is up to every citizen (not just people from liberal churches) to speak out about this. (And I do believe some conservative believers are a threat when they start talking about limiting what rights women have over their own bodies, who can marry whom, who can adopt children, whether or not real science is taught in schools, blaming natural or manmade disasters on the "sinful" behaviors of some people...)
But changing conservatives would be very hard to do. There is a reason why some of them are so "in-your-face" and trying to meddle in other peoples' lives. Conservative evangelicals believe that they have to keep on converting others and making their government align with their religion because they have been indoctrinated into thinking that they have to save others in order to maintain their own salvation. As long as the leaders can peddle the fear of HELL we have a problem. In order to fix this we need to get rid of the concept of eternal Hell. In order to do that we have to get them to let go of Bibilical literalism. In order to do that we have to get these black and white thinkers who take comfort in absolutes to give up their faith and transform it into something compeletely different.
This is not an easy thing!! I married into a family of conservative evangelicals. The fear they have of stepping a toe out of line is unbelievable!
But we have the same battle for faith that we do for political liberalism. We need our own airwaves. Just as the RW bloviators own the political airspace, so do the RW people of "faith". We need an alternative to the 700 club and TBS and Angel. There is no Air America for liberal believers. The closest I can find is Day 1 which is still not liberal enough for the likes of me.. though it is better than the 700 club.
I have tried to get people to write in to DISH, DirecTV, Xm, and Sirius to demand equal programming. But we need backers. We need funding. We need programming to offer.
This is NOT going to be easy.. and we need help. There is an alternative for people who want to listen to or view spiritual programming, but we have to make it happen.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5186160
"We spend lots of time pointing to the Muslim community and telling them that their religion of peace has been hijacked. We show them point after point after point and then we tell them if they want to save their religion -- if they truly are a religion of peace -- then *they* need to do what only *they* can do: CLEAN HOUSE.
I'm sorry if Christians are offended to be lumped in with the fundamentalists of their religion. Please remember, these zealots are a problem in *your* community which is affecting us all and endangering peace. Now, just like the Muslims, it is time for you to prove you are a religion of peace. *You* need to go do what only *you* can do: CLEAN HOUSE."
My thoughts on this:
Claiming that liberal Christians are the only ones who have to speak up when the conservative ones become hateful is no more fair than expecting the French to keep the Quebecois in line. Yes there is some common language there, but that's all the connection they have. If what conservative believers do is a threat to all of the American public, then it is up to every citizen (not just people from liberal churches) to speak out about this. (And I do believe some conservative believers are a threat when they start talking about limiting what rights women have over their own bodies, who can marry whom, who can adopt children, whether or not real science is taught in schools, blaming natural or manmade disasters on the "sinful" behaviors of some people...)
But changing conservatives would be very hard to do. There is a reason why some of them are so "in-your-face" and trying to meddle in other peoples' lives. Conservative evangelicals believe that they have to keep on converting others and making their government align with their religion because they have been indoctrinated into thinking that they have to save others in order to maintain their own salvation. As long as the leaders can peddle the fear of HELL we have a problem. In order to fix this we need to get rid of the concept of eternal Hell. In order to do that we have to get them to let go of Bibilical literalism. In order to do that we have to get these black and white thinkers who take comfort in absolutes to give up their faith and transform it into something compeletely different.
This is not an easy thing!! I married into a family of conservative evangelicals. The fear they have of stepping a toe out of line is unbelievable!
But we have the same battle for faith that we do for political liberalism. We need our own airwaves. Just as the RW bloviators own the political airspace, so do the RW people of "faith". We need an alternative to the 700 club and TBS and Angel. There is no Air America for liberal believers. The closest I can find is Day 1 which is still not liberal enough for the likes of me.. though it is better than the 700 club.
I have tried to get people to write in to DISH, DirecTV, Xm, and Sirius to demand equal programming. But we need backers. We need funding. We need programming to offer.
This is NOT going to be easy.. and we need help. There is an alternative for people who want to listen to or view spiritual programming, but we have to make it happen.
